In memoriam of Gyorgy Sandor (1912 / 2005)
Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 10/20/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The generation of pianists who were born between 1870 and 1940, were gifted (apart of the basic technical training) of a wholeness of vision around the score to play. Many of them grew up and even had the privilege to meet and gather with the composers of those ages; the musical nationalism was disseminated through Europe and molded in good measure the musical evolution in emerging musical potencies. According your temperament you might choose the right place to culminate your formation.
In the particular case of Hungary, the figure of Bela Bartok was an inspiration's source for many other composers in the rest of Europe. If Stravinsky and Prokoviev inflamed the Dionysian imagination through his amazing ballets, Debussy, Ravel and Respighi notably contributed to nourish the spectral sounds through the musical Impressionism; but Bartok had in Gyorgy Sandor not only a voice but an effective presence in the international stages.
The egregious pianism of Sandor emerged then from a particular necessity to express those dark dissonances and refulgent canvas of lights and shades that illustrate the essential core of the Hungarian Folk music.
Sandor left us on December 9th, 2005, but to my mind his powerful presence will be enhancing exponentially day after day. How I would wish our actual generation of pianists thought and felt the played material, and not a simple set of efficient machine players without soul and nothing to say.
This set is absolutely a gem, but the final product of a human being who made of Bartok his own flag along his lifetime.
In memoriam!
"