Search - Bela Bartok, Murray Perahia, Georg Solti :: Murray Perahia Performs Béla Bartók (Piano Sonata; Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs; Suite; Out of Doors; Sonata for 2 pianos & 2 percussion)

Perahia is unexpectedly exciting in Bartok

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 07/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Having made his career on the gentler side of the sound spectrum with Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert, Murray Perahia applies himself forcefully to some of Bartok's greatest piano music. The composer single-handedly reinvented piano sonority, famously using the piano as a percussion instrument, sometimes brutally, and employing it for stark melodic lines underpinned by hammering ostinato rhythms.



For someone like me who doesn't regularly listen to Bartok's piano works, there's a range of tough modernist expression here, from the relatively easy listening of the Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs to the fierceness of the Out of Doors set and the Suite. I find myself attracted most to the Sonata (1926), which strikes a balance between the assaultive and emoitonal accessibility. Perahia doesn't hold back in any of the fiercer passages, so I wouldn't recommend trying to sit through the whole CD at a stretch, but the piano sound is natural and clean.



These solo recordings pair disparate performances on one CD with the great Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Perahia's partner is Georg Solti, doing a respectable if somewhat tame job together. The real stars are the percussionists, particularly the now-famous Evelyn Glennie. Sony has given them good sonics with a carefully set up sondstage that follows Bartok's precise demands for how the players are to be seated. The sonata is quite tricky to record with so many percussive sounds, and the thrill of a live performance is extremely hard if not impossible to duplicate. Even so, this is one of the best-sounding recordings, and the new DSD remastering helps remove some of its former sting."