Posts tagged as "zoltan-kodaly"

Antal Doráti · Philharmonia Hungarica – The Mercury Masters

December 2, 2024

Driving intensity, rhythmic flair and demonstration-quality sound are brought to the fore in a new anthology of Antal Doráti’s early recordings with the Philharmonia Hungarica on Mercury and Philips. Founded in 1956, the Philharmonia Hungarica emerged from turbulent post-war times as a crack ensemble of émigré Hungarian musicians who had fled Communism for the West. […]

Igor Markevitch – The Philips Legacy

July 9, 2021

Igor Markevitch’s complete recordings for Philips, made between 1959 and 1968, including several recordings new to CD. Igor Markevitch made his debut on the Philips label in 1959 with a pair of symphonies by Haydn, conducting the Parisian Lamoureux Orchestra, whose fortunes he had begun to revive two years previously. He had embarked on a […]

Eduard van Beinum – Twentieth-Century Masterpieces

March 16, 2018

The recorded legacy of Eduard van Beinum has been extensively documented on Eloquence. Previous issues have revealed the Dutch conductor’s mastery of and sympathy for 20th-century composers such as Sibelius (442 9487) and Britten (480 2337). His clear-headed approach to any score, combined with the refinement of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, particularly suit the music of […]

Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex; Strauss: Elektra (Scenes); Kodaly: Hary Janos

October 31, 2016

Both Strauss’s ‘Elektra’ and Stravinsky’s ‘Oedipus Rex’ trace their lineages back to Sophocles, the Greek dramatist who lived in the fourth century BC. Both are stories of the avenging of a royal father’s murder, either by surviving family members (‘Elektra’) or by Fate or the gods themselves (‘Oedipus Rex’). Even from an early age, Georg […]

Kodaly & Bartok: Orchestral Works

September 30, 2016

Georg Solti studied piano with Bartók and although they never developed a close personal relationship, Solti was always in awe of the composer’s dedication and intensity. Bartók’s music featured regularly in Solti’s concert programs and he recorded the ‘Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta’ and the ‘Dance Suite’ for Decca. This 1952 recording of the ‘Dance Suite’ with […]

Kodály: Choral Works; Bartók: Cantata Profana

April 18, 2016

Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók were Hungary’s two most important composers in the 20th century. They were both friends and colleagues, working separately and together to document and preserve folk music from Hungary and its surrounding regions. The music they collected strongly influenced their own compositions. Decca was one of the first major record companies […]

Kodaly: Peacock Variations; Háry János: Suite; Dances of Galánta

April 18, 2016

Collected on a single CD are István Kertész’s complete orchestral recordings of Kodály’s music together with the choral song, ‘The Peacock’ which precedes the ‘Peacock Variations’. For thrill, swagger and colour – not to mention Decca’s state-of-the-art sound – these recordings set a benchmark by which all others will be measured. Reviewing the recordings of the […]

Kodaly: Háry János; Bartok: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

April 18, 2016

István Kertész’s recordings on Decca are legendary and many of them are now on CD on Eloquence – some for the first time. This generous 2CD set offers a unique coupling of two ‘fairy tale’ pieces by Hungarian composers: Kodály’s ‘Hary Janos’ (a ‘singspiel’), a light-hearted tale of the imaginary adventures of the Hungarian general (with […]

Kodály: Piano Works

March 12, 2016

Andor Foldes recorded a selection of Kodály’s piano works for American Decca (the catalogue now owned by Deutsche Grammophon) in January 1957. A close compatriot of both Bartók and Kodály, Foldes was one of Hungary’s pre-eminent pianist whose discography for Deutsche Grammophon is extensive. Included on this CD are Foldes’s own transcriptions of music from […]

Virtuoso Violin

March 7, 2016

The violinist who straddled the divide between the old ways and the new, was the Viennese virtuoso, Wolfgang Eduard Schneiderhan. He was born on 28th May 1915 and beginning violin lessons at five, he polished his technique under Sevcík and Winkler. From the 1950s onward, Schneiderhan displayed all the qualities normally associated with German musicians. […]

Dohnányi: Piano Quintet No. 1, Sextet; Kodály: String Quartet No. 2

March 5, 2016

While Dohnányi’s musical language was firmly rooted in the nineteenth century, the two chamber works on this reissue – championed by András Schiff and the Takács Quartet, no less – deserve much greater attention than they get. Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet was written when he was seventeen and bears the strong imprint of Brahms, courtesy of […]