Critic’s Notebook: Anderszewski Recital, Musikverein

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Piotr Anderszewski: Chopin-Mazurkas verwandeln sich bei ihm in Muränen

A Masterclass in Relaxation and Rubato: Piotr Anderszewski at the Musikverein

K.Szymanowski, B.Bartók, L.Janáček, Mazurkas Op. 50, 14 Bagatelles etc. Piotr Anderszewski Warner

Piotr Anderszweski was only the replacement, at his piano recital at Vienna’s Musikverein: Maria João Pires had been scheduled to perform but had to cancel. Not a shabby replacement. Few patrons in the well-filled Golden Hall could have complained beforehand; fewer still afterwards. For one, it’s nice that he isn’t a piano-bench dancer, who tries to tell you with his contortions how you are supposed to feel about the music, rather than making you feel that way through how he plays. He’s got a steady hand at the wheel, and wields a (surprisingly) wild rubato with it, which turned the three Chopin Mazurkas op.59 into relaxed Nocturnes that would, every so often, suddenly, rear their head, and shoot forward like a moray eel aiming for the unsuspecting diver’s naked toe. At those moments, when, after stealing so much time in some places, he had to give it all back at the end of a phrase, the notes became pushed together to the point of cluster chords. Five (out of 20) of Szymanowski’s Mazurkas op.50 varied between relaxed and disembodied, almost indifferent on the one hand (metaphorically, not literally), and lively and besotted with tonal color on the other.

Bartók’s 14 Bagatelles, op.6, are little character pieces that come in all shapes and colors, with cathedral-like grandness one second, prickly little will-o’-the-wisps the next, tickling the ears, turning in the wind this way, then that, and adding a share of lovelorn bitterness. Anderszewski made them come alive, just moving his fingers, entirely unfazed. Where the opening E minor Bach Partita BWV 830 had been so flexible, it had into something intriguing yet almost worryingly romantic, the concluding B major Partita BWV 825, was exalted and sublime, with a steady pulse and forward momentum, very lively (Courante), then exuding celestial peace (Sarabande), a tinkling of bells (Menuet), and dashing, compelling in the concluding Gigue. Bach and Bartók as encores, too, and especially the latter’s Three Hungarian Folk Songs from Csík shone in coy, playful light, sounded almost like Mompou.

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Briefly Noted: Anderszewski's Central European Survey (CD of the Month)

Janáček, On an Overgrown Path (Book 2) / Szymanowski, Mazurkas (selected) / Bartók, Bagatelles (complete), Piotr Anderszewski (released on January 26, 2024) Warner Classics 5419789127 | 65'32"

Schedule conflicts prevented me from hearing Piotr Anderszewski's most recent area recitals at Shriver Hall, in 2023 and 2019, much to my regret. The Polish pianist's program last year included some of Karol Szymanowski's Mazurkas, which are at the heart of this new recital disc, combining sets of early 20th-century miniatures by three esteemed composers from central Europe. Anderszewski once summed up his approach to playing the piano by saying, "to be a musician is to make sense through sound." In performance, he continued, he allows himself "a certain incoherence," to be "in a world of feelings where strict logic is not the most important thing."

The sense of vivid storytelling in an uncomprehended language suits this compilation of pieces enlivened by dissonance and folk-inspired rhythm and harmony. The disc opens with the second book of Janáček's On an Overgrown Path, recorded in 2016 at Warsaw Radio. Anderszewski included the three pieces the composer never officially included in the in the second book, from 1911. Janáček eschewed the character titles he gave each movement in Book 1, providing only tempo markings. This choice gives some emotional distance from the subject matter Janáček ascribed to these pieces, a combination of memories of his childhood and the painful experiences surrounding the death of his 20-year-old daughter Olga in 1903.

The other two selections on this disc were captured last year in Berlin. Anderszewski has long championed the music of fellow Pole Karol Szymanowski, and he gives glowing accounts of six of the twenty Mazurkas published in the composer's Op. 50. Szymanowski went even farther than Chopin in his incorporation of folk elements in his Mazurkas, and Anderszewski brings out the blue-note touches, quintal drones, and imitation of folk instruments.

The complete set of Bartók’s Bagatelles, Op. 6, packs intense flavors into each of these fourteen pieces, most no longer than a minute or two. The experimental nature of this early score, completed in 1908, is announced in the very first piece, where Bartók notated the left hand in four sharps and the right in four flats. The mixture of modal colors, drawn from central European folk music, and atonal techniques revealing the influence of Debussy and Schoenberg, is bracing in Anderszewski's rendition. The final pair of Bagatelles reveal the influence of Stefi Geyer, the young violinist Bartók developed an unrequited love for around this time: a funeral elegy ("Elle est morte") and a madcap waltz ("Ma mie qui danse"), both containing a melodic motif associated with her.


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A Survey of Bartók String Quartet Cycles

► An Index of ionarts Discographies

Continuing my discographies, this is a survey of - hopefully - every extant recorded cycle of Béla Bartók's String Quartets. Because finding the recording dates for all of these cycles had been/remains tricky, I have listed them alphabetically by performer. I do not, by and large, include incomplete cycles. I did, however, include cycles that are not complete on CD, which includes, for example (strangely), the Talich Quartet's Supraphon cycle from 1981/82, but not their incomplete London cycle (Nos 3 & 4 missing) on Collins from 1990/91.

I am sitting on the data for several new discographic entries under work. Ring cycles, Mahler, Nielsen, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven symphony cycles, Mozart Piano Concerto and String Quartet-cycles, among others. They take an awful lot of time to research, however, and even more time to put into html-presentable shape. And even then they are rarely complete or mistake-free. Neither will this one be, and every such post is also a plea to generously inclined readers with more information and knowledge of the subject than I have to lend a helping hand correcting my mistakes or filling data-lacunae. I am explicitly grateful for any such pointers, hinters, and corrections and apologize for any bloomers. Unlike some earlier discographies, this one does intend to be comprehensive. So I am especially grateful if I have sets that I have missed are pointed out to me. I have not listened to them all, but favorites are indicated with the "ionarts choice" graphic. Links to reputable reviews are included where I thought of it and could find any. With hundreds of links in this document, there are, despite my best efforts, bound to be some that are broken or misplaced; I am glad about every correction that comes my way. Enjoy!


Edits

06.10.2025Hard to believe - but apparently no new recordings have been made of the six Bartók Quartets. So I fixed a few broken links and the Diotima's cycle the right recording dates and added some flavour text to the ABQ's recording.

01.20.2023Thanks to the DSCH-SQ4t-Cycle-Survey, I remembered about the Quartetto Classico - and I've added it below.

01.16.2023 I'm about to put this puppy online but have just discovered the first cycle I had hitherto overlooked: The Auryn Quartett's. But now we should be ready.

There is also information floating about the net regarding a "Rudi Mahall Quartett" cycle. I find only Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6 listed under their name and the online recordings seem all to stem from one source. I have my doubts as to whether there really ever was such a quartet/recording or whether it's not some meta-data funk-up. Clarification appreciated..

05.26.2021: I have heard there is a cycle by a "Quartetto Classico" ["Cuarteto Classico"?] but cannot find a trace of it. Anyone know?

(Survey begins after the break, if you didn't land on this page directly)

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Briefly Noted: Ying Li

Mozart, Sonatas / Bartók, Suite, Sonata, Ying Li (released on October 7, 2022) Decca 00028948581443 | 61'21"

The pianist Ying Li, a 24-year-old Wunderkind, made an auspicious Washington debut this past week. Born in China, where she received her early musical training, she has completed advanced studies at the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School here in the United States, counting Jonathan Biss, Seymour Lipkin, and Robert McDonald among her teachers. Last year she won first prize at the Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, leading to Young Concert Artists presenting her in a solo recital at the Kennedy Center on October 11. She repeats that program this Tuesday at Carnegie Hall.

Ying's debut recording for Decca shows many of the same qualities heard when she played live. Two Mozart sonatas -- K. 281 and 333, both in B-flat major -- frame the disc, clean and spirited in character like the Haydn sonata she played in her concert. Runs, passage work, and trills sparkle, with not a note out of place, but there is considerable sensitivity and dynamic shading as well. She shows admirable patience in the simpler slow movements, with a great variety of voicing and articulation. Although she has impressive virtuosic chops, put to work in the Bartók, she displayed considerable maturity in the understated way she played these sonatas.

Bartók's Piano Sonata is the only piece from this album that Ying played at the Kennedy Center, and it is a blockbuster interpretation. In concert it was perhaps eclipsed by even more demanding pieces like Schumann's Fantasie in C Major, Guido Agosti's suite arrangement of music from Stravinsky's The Firebird, and Qigang Chen's Messiaen-like Instants d'un Opéra de Pékin. By contrast on the disc, the Bartók sonata is the most daunting work, paired with the composer's earlier Suite, full of bouncing jollity. She plays the sonata with ferocious control and percussive touch, but it is far from being only pointed attacks, with the many pulsating parts distinguished from one another by careful voicing. As her concert program showed, there is plenty more athleticism where that came from, as well as poise beyond her years.

On ClassicsToday: Checking Out The Budapest Orchestral Scene Part III

Jenő Koppándi & Zsolt Hamar

For my ongoing survey of Budapest’s orchestral scene, I picked out an all-Bartók evening with the Hungarian National Philharmonic after having heard a great Concerto Budapest concert and the Hungarian RSO in the Ring. The National Philharmonic came to (Western) fame under its longtime director János Ferencsik and again when it was led for two decades by Zoltán Kocsis until the latter’s death in 2016. The ambitious bill on this season-opening night included the Two Portraits Op. 5, the Third Piano Concerto, and Bluebeard’s Castle for the main course. Fab stuff, mosty:

All-Bartók Season-Opener With The Hungarian National Philharmonic

Below are a few photos from the concert to go with that review.

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On ClassicsToday: Vilde Frang & Friends Perform the Enescu Octet

Look Mom, No Conductor! Brilliant Enescu Octet With Vilde Frang & Friends

by Jens F. Laurson

The octet of musical acquaintances on this disc, who were all lured to magnificent Schloss Elmau—a luxury spa-hotel right beneath the Bavarian Alps with its own renown music series—is a who’s who of the young generation’s finest musicians. Apart from front-woman Vilde Frang, there’s Gabriel... Continue Reading

CD Review: Jerusalem Quartet's Bartók

Patrick Rucker and Charles T. Downey, CD reviews: Bartók by heart, for the heart
Washington Post, November 11

Bartók, String Quartets 2/4/6, Jerusalem Quartet (released on November 4, 2016) HMC902235 | 78'51"

Béla Bartók’s six string quartets are a cross-section of his musical development. Over 30 years, 1909 to 1939, the Hungarian composer can be heard working his way through the musical trends of the first half of the 20th century. A late Romantic in the mold of Liszt and Wagner, Bartók became a modernist through his study both of pre-tonal folk music from Hungary and other countries, and of post-tonal incorporation of dissonance.

The gold standard for the Bartók quartets up to this point, live and in two versions on disc, has been the Takács Quartet, which gave an exemplary performance of the entire cycle at the Kennedy Center in 2014. The Jerusalem Quartet excels in 20th-century repertoire, including its fine partial traversal of the Shostakovich quartets. To judge from the first disc of its new recorded Bartók set, with the even-numbered quartets, the group’s account will not displace the Takács but promises to be in its league.

The second quartet receives the most convincing rendition, especially the dizzying fluidity in the dancing rhythms of Arabian folk dance in the second movement. One of the first movement’s principal motifs, outlining a minor third in stepwise motion, receives just the right caressing attention from all four players.

The success of the fourth quartet rests on the gently creeping night music of the slow movement, the centerpiece of five movements written in palindromic form (a Bartók signature). The Jerusalem Quartet does not captivate with an eclectic variety of sound like the Takács, and the conclusion of the fifth movement feels too polite to be bloodthirsty. On the other hand, the quartet creates a fun interplay of Stravinsky-esque metric shifts and off-beat accents in the first movement. The inner movements are the most delightful — a restless, questing Prestissimo in the second movement, with mutes on, and an astounding variety of plucked sounds in the fourth movement.

No. 6 is a piece steeped in sadness, composed just before Bartók was compelled to flee Europe for an unhappy few final years in New York. Laments (marked Mesto) open each movement and become the central subject of the finale. The solos that permeate the work are all polished, perhaps too polished. One misses the quirky individualism of the Takács Quartet’s approach.

Jerusalem Quartet's latest appearance, Clarice Smith

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Bartók, String Quartets 2/4/6, Jerusalem Quartet (released on November 4, 2016) HMC902235 | 78'51" Beethoven, String Quartets, op. 18, Jerusalem Quartet (Harmonia Mundi, 2015) Haydn, Lark Quartet (inter alia), Jerusalem Quartet (Harmonia Mundi, 2004)

We try never to miss any concert by the Jerusalem Quartet. The latest opportunity came on Sunday afternoon at the Clarice Smith Center in College Park. Hopefully, the group's service in the Israel Defense Force is no longer drawing angry protests for political reasons, as none has been observed at their most recent concerts. No matter what your political views, it is beyond argument that this string quartet is one of the most consistently musical ensembles playing this rarefied repertory.

This program opened with one of the Haydn quartets the group recorded over a decade ago, op. 64, no. 5, known as "L'Alouette" (The lark). Haydn is not easy, although his music may seem so on the surface, because it requires extraordinary subtlety to bring off well. Only some initial tuning discrepancies marred the first time through the exposition of the first movement, which settled into place for the rest of the piece. The first movement's tempo marking, Allegro moderato, implies exactly the jaunty but unhurried pace chosen by the Jerusalems, allowing just enough relishing of Haydn's sneaking back into the main theme at the recapitulation. The second movement had the feel of an opera aria, showcasing the solo of first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky, accompanied with gorgeously delicate variations by the accompanying instruments. The group's dance movements are generally delightful, as was the Menuetto here, weighty yet graceful, and not too fast, with comic wrong-note grace notes and a plaintive trio. Only with the finale, set at a tempo of Vivace, did the speed come out of the arsenal of weapons. Light, playful, it was a tour de force, with all instruments featured in beautiful spotlights in the fugal section.

The Prokofiev string quartets are hopefully among this group's future recording projects. Given that their Shostakovich ranks among the best version of that composer's quartet cycle, it was little surprise that a performance of Prokofiev's op. 50 was so good. Pavlovsky had just the right gleaming tone on the slashing first violin melody of the first movement's opening theme, with the other instruments coming to the fore in the slower, more passionate second theme. Tuning issues cropped up again, with unisons and octaves between instruments not always lining up, but the brutal passages were appropriately savage. After a mournful opening, the second movement's grotesque faster sections were funny and obsessive, with cellist Kyril Zlotnikov howling on his A-string solo. Violist Ori Kam had some luscious solo moments in the third movement, which buzzed with intensity until it died away.

Once during the Prokofiev and again in Beethoven's op. 59, no. 1 ("Razumovsky"), Zlotnikov's cello peg seemed to slide out of its place on the floor and bump his music stand. Resulting unease may have been partially responsible for the Beethoven feeling the least satisfying, although still beautiful. The first movement went a little too fast for all of the rapid running passages to come out distinctly enough, but Beethoven's toying around with the return of the main theme at the recapitulation, long delayed, was rendered well. The tempo marking of the second movement is confusing, because it is seemingly contradictory (Allegretto vivace sempre scherzando), but the Jerusalems took it not too fast, which seems the right call. The obsessive "drum motif" that runs through the piece is more tense that way. The climax of the quartet here was the slow movement, which was placid, clear, and expressive because it was so well coordinated. The trill in the first violin covered the transition into the finale, where the strain of a long evening frayed the edges of the first violinist's playing in a few places.

A single encore was a preview of the Jerusalem Quartet's new disc of half of Bartók's string quartets, a repertory I have been waiting for them to record. The Allegro pizzicato movement from the fourth quartet had a stunning variety of plucked sound, making it much more than just an effect piece. The force of the "Bartók pizzicati," more percussive than a normal plucked string, caused one of the cellist's strings to break, sadly not many bars before the piece ended. Once the string was replaced, and a few anecdotes told, the group repeated the entire movement.

Next up at the Clarice Smith Center, the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra plays Shostakovich's tenth symphony (November 7, 8 pm).

Forbes Classical CD of the Week

…Kodály’s two quartets are exactly contemporaries of Bartók’s first two attempts in the genre. Had he kept writing such inspired and especially idiomatic quartets, we would speak of him in one breath with Shostakovich and Bartók (and perhaps Villa-Lobos) as a seminal composer of string quartets.…

-> Classical CD of the Week: Bartók & Kodály, Toothsome Hungarian Twosome

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#morninglistening: Itzhak & Pinky, Moszkowski, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartók Violin Duos

#morninglistening to @PerlmanOfficial on @WarnerClassics in #Bartok and #Shostakovich #cl… http://t.co/kYQ9P0ko18 pic.twitter.com/YTrb1dALza

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 5, 2015

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#morninglistening: Itzhak's Bartók-Outing

#morninglistening to #Bartok 2nd VC w/@PerlmanOfficial & @londonsymphony on @WarnerClassic… http://t.co/miKve4Mw9V pic.twitter.com/aczg9ak46X

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 7, 2015

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Joshua Bell Surprises

Bach, Violin Concertos (inter alia), Academy of St Martin in the Fields, J. Bell (Sony, 2014)

Joshua Bell's recital, presented by Washington Performing Arts on Tuesday night, did not even make the cut in my concert picks for the month of March. The American violinist comes to Washington in most years, most recently for a public performance at Union Station and the National Symphony Orchestra's season opener and again later in the season. WPAS has presented him in recital every other year or so, most recently in 2012 -- twice -- 2009, and 2008. As always, this recital sold out again, no matter how often he plays here, so my recommending it or not was beside the point, but a critic can be excused for feeling a little jaded about another performance by Joshua Bell. At least he was not playing the Franck sonata again, and the Brahms on the program was not the third sonata again -- these thoughts passed through my mind as I convinced myself to attend.

A gifted performer will surprise you, though, and Bell has turned a corner in my appreciation. As he told me wanted to do in a 2012 interview, he has moved in some new directions. His new recording of Bach concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, where he serves as both soloist and leader, shows a willingness to explore beyond his comfort zone of Romantic music. His opener on this recital, Beethoven's A minor violin sonata (op. 23), did not show much progress in the Classical period for Bell. True, the outer movements were quite fast, even a little wild, especially the finale, in which Bell seemed to race ahead of his pianist, Sam Haywood. The sforzandi had savage bite, and the slow movement was sweet, but the whole thing failed to transport, ending up feeling a little plain. Little worry, as it turned out, because two Romantic masterworks proved more vital, more effusive even than what Bell often brings to this sort of music.

Bell slashed through Grieg's first sonata (F major, op. 8) with broad, exciting strokes, his full and throaty tone enlivened by a mercurial rubato reminiscent of folk music, creating volcanic outbursts between sweet statements of the soft theme. The middle movement was perfect for Bell's trademarked soave sound, a perfect ribbon of sweet sound, with the B section treated like a folk fiddle reel. Again, Bell may have pushed the third movement slightly too fast, causing some alignment and intonation problems here and there, but the sense of unpredictability was also a pleasing effect. (It was a sign of how engaging the playing that paramedics removing a patron in a health crisis during the end of the first movement barely registered on me.)

Other Articles: Patrick Rucker, Violinist Joshua Bell meets his match in pianist Sam Haywood (Washington Post, April 2) Roizy Waldman, The Violin that Witnessed History (Ami Magazine, March 29) Emily Cary, ‘Meat and potatoes’ balance at Kennedy Center when violinist Bell and pianist Haywood take the stage (Washington Times, March 29) Libby Hanssen, Joshua Bell, Sam Haywood display virtuosity and partnership in concert at Helzberg Hall (Kansas City Star, March 15)

One knew that the Brahms first sonata (G major, op. 78) was going to be good from the very first phrase, where Bell struck just the right combination of hesitation and smoldering tone, and indeed this Brahms was everything that Raphaël Sévère had missed the previous evening. Every aspect of the violin part was ideal, down to the singing double-stop version of the slow movement's main theme, indicating that Bell could have a top-notch recording of the Brahms sonatas in the offing. My only reservation would be the choice of pianist, as Haywood did not do great things with the piano-only introduction to the second movement, and his playing, while technically able, felt too shy, too subservient for Brahms, especially the rather weak sound of the bass.

Bartók's first rhapsody was a nice match for the folk music aspects heard in other parts of the program. The first movement had an acidic edge, and both movements had that rhythmic flexibility that is a part of the folk music that so inspired the composer. Bell's technique was near-infallible in the many dazzling double-stop and off-string effects, but the piece worked because it made such musical sense. The icing on the cake was the choice of two encores that were completely opposite my expectations, beginning with Bell's own arrangement of Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 (C# minor, op. posth) and followed by Brahms's first Hungarian Dance.

Dip Your Ears, No. 183 (Brahms from Chailly & Kavakos)

J.Brahms (B.Bartók), Violin Concerto, 4 Hungarian Dances (Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano) Leonidas Kavakos (Péter Nagy) R.Chailly / Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Decca

Varnish and Leather

Riccardo Chailly gets more audacious and interesting with age. Where other conductors become increasingly mellow and predictably bland, Chailly (whose interpretations started out on the tepid side) is experiencing a Benjamin Button phase and delivers darkly varnished boldness. That’s true for his latest Mahler, it’s true for his recent Beethoven Symphonies, and it’s also true for this new release of the Brahms Violin Concerto in which he collaborates with Leonidas Kavakos. Kavakos, at his best capable of a wonderful mix of delicacy and a fierce leathery tone, is in fact in top form and manages tenderness while avoiding sweetness all awhile Chailly indulges in the wonderful sound of his Leipzig Orchestra. Closing the recital with a few of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances makes sense, seeing how the Concerto’s finale is full of allusions to them and the Bartók Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano (with Péter Nagy) cleanse the palate in between. No lids get blown of one’s perceptions of the Brahms concerto, but the artistry and the combination of their sound—recorded with a gutsy amount of natural reverb—is so damn beautiful, it makes this well worth adding atop your pile of Brahms Violin Concertos. The disc’s closing with Brahms’ Hungarian Dances alludes to the Concerto’s finale while the Bartók Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano (with Péter Nagy) cleanse the palate in between. 

Briefly Noted: Planès Plays Bartók

Bartók, Piano Pieces, A. Planès (released on May 13, 2014) HMC 902163 | 78'42"

Alain Planès plays the music of so many composers so well, including the Haydn, Debussy, and Scarlatti we have heard over the years. A formidable technician with a painterly sense of color, he excels in vignettes rather than long forms, so it is little surprise that he produces beguiling results in this set of mostly miniatures by Bartók. On disc, some of these pieces have largely been the domain of Hungarian pianists, who almost certainly started playing the composer's works as children. In addition to the widely recorded piano sonata (SZ 80), here pleasingly bouncy and bluesy rather than overly biting, Planès gives the listener a sort of tour of Bartók's transcription and adaptation of folk melodies. This includes four songs from the Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs (SZ 71) and all six of the slender Romanian Folk Dances (SZ 56), two sets that show Bartók's affinity for the folk music of both countries. (As the Transylvanian village where Bartók was born was on the border, it actually became part of Romania in the aftermath of World War I.) The Dance Suite (SZ 77) and the relatively rare set of Fourteen Bagatelles (SZ 38) round out the program, with each short movement given a ravishing suavity of touch and melodic phrasing. If you have never fancied Bartók's keyboard music, give it a spin.

Takács Plays Bartók, Part 2

Bartók, String Quartets, Takács Quartet (2d ed., 1998) Bartók, String Quartets, Takács Quartet (1st ed., 1985) [Scores]

The Takács Quartet was back in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater last night for the second part of its complete Bartók cycle (see my review of Part 1). The trajectory was much the same in the even-numbered string quartets, as we heard the composer experiment with modernist techniques and incorporate folk music (or folk sensibilities, as he might have put it) to arrive at an often dissonant style that retains many traditional qualities.

Bartók composed the second quartet from 1915 to 1917, when he lived in the suburbs of Budapest, of which period scholar János Kárpáti says that "the general worries of the war-torn world made his life difficult." It overlapped with the composition of another major work of that time, The Wooden Prince, with which it shares many experimental qualities. As we have heard from the Takács before in this piece (at the Corcoran in 2008 and 2006), the contrapuntal lines were clear throughout, savoring the dissonances of the opening (E-flat in second violin against D in the viola) and hammering them later. The folk-like accelerando and decelerando of the second movement reflected the quartet's collaborations with Muzsikás, an ensemble dedicated to performing Hungarian folk music: a music of fits and starts, half-sung serenades, jokes told and repeated. This set up a stark contrast with the devastating lament of the third movement, the first violin of Edward Dusinberre keening over sighed dissonances.

The fourth quartet, composed in 1928 and 1929, came on the heels of no. 3, set in a palindromic form that became a Bartók hallmark, five movements arranged symmetrically around the central slow movement. As heard when the group performed it last, in 2012, it is a compendium of odd effects -- harmonics, rhythmic ostinati, growls. In particular, the second and fourth movements, based on unusual sounds (muted strings in the former, plucked ones in the latter), dazzled, with magical cat-meow glissandi punctuating the madcap buzzing in the second movement and an almost banjo-like consistency in the pizzicato. The night music of the central slow movement featured gorgeous solos from cello (folksy), viola (almost self-throttling), and violin (like a night bird).

Only the first quartet, heard the first night, and the sixth quartet, composed in 1939, had not been reviewed live in these pages before from the Takács. As the musicians sat down to play no. 6, a feeling of sadness descended over me, as I realized that the cycle had to come to an end. Geraldine Walther, who was once an associate principal in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, gave a plangent reading of the opening viola solo, setting the tone of tragedy that begins each movement and is left hovering in the room at the end of the work. The march of the second movement was weighty and often grotesque, with a folk music-like middle section, while the Burletta of the third movement was likewise worthy of Shostakovich, the improvised accompaniment of a silent film farce. These two concerts confirmed my belief that one will not hear any other group perform Bartók's string quartets better today than the Takács.

Takács Plays Bartók, Part 1

Bartók, String Quartets, Takács Quartet (2d ed., 1998) Bartók, String Quartets, Takács Quartet (1st ed., 1985)

One of the most interesting things that the Fortas Chamber Concerts series, at the Kennedy Center, does is to host a complete cycle of a composer's string quartets (pace Will Robin). The last of these we reviewed was the Shostakovich set performed by the Emerson Quartet in 2007 and 2008. As a followup to the appearance of the Takács Quartet on the series in 2012, which featured a memorable performance of Béla Bartók's fourth quartet, the series has engaged the group to present a complete cycle of the Hungarian composer's string quartets. History has shown that we will endure pretty much anything to hear the Takács Quartet play, so a little snow was not about to keep me home for the first of the two concerts, heard last night in the Terrace Theater.

In one sense, the scores of the Bartók string quartets trace one composer's absorption of the musical trends of the first half of the 20th century -- something that composer George Perle, an acute analyst, noted almost fifty years ago. The Takács's division of the six quartets, all of the odd-numbered quartets the first evening and the evens the second, makes it possible to hear that trajectory twice. Beginning with the first quartet, the only one composed before World War I, they gave Bartók's exploration of more Romantic tonal harmony a heated rendition. Bartók began the piece just after his obsession with the young violinist Steffi Geyer had come to its end: scholar János Kárpáti puts the dates of composition, from sketches to publication, at 1907 to 1909. Kárpáti describes an annotation the composer made in the score of the firts violin concerto around the same time -- a date in 1907 and the word Jászberény, which Geyer has interpreted as a reference to the time that Bartók likely fell in love with her, when she and her brother invited the composer as a guest in their relatives' house in that city. The broken seventh chord that begins the first quartet's first movement is a variation of the so-called "Steffi Geyer-motif," leading Kárpáti to describe the movement as "the concentrate of the Violin Concerto." The two pieces are the closest, in Kárpáti's estimation, that Bartók came to a close imitation of the longing love-death style of harmony and melodic writing he admired in Wagner. These are the qualities that the Takács Quartet brought out so admirably, each instrument's line sounding so beautiful on its own and integrated into the whole.

Other Reviews: Zachary Woolfe, Taking On a Master and His Many Complexities (New York Times, January 22) George Grella, Compelling and mysterious, the inner Bartók is explored by the Takács Quartet (New York Classical Review, January 19)

Already by the end of the first quartet, Bartók seems to have rejected the post-Wagnerian style and begun to experiment with harsher sounds. He entered his third quartet, composed in 1927, in the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society competition, and it won. Last heard from the Takács at the Corcoran in 2004, it shows the composer playing with every possible kind of hard-edged sound and the musicians of the Takács wrung all the energy from it that they could. Their Bartók is so pleasing, though, because they find beauty and balance even in the oddest sounds: beautifully tuned clusters, sighing pizzicato glissandi (a specialty of cellist András Fejér), clacking bow bounces and other percussive effects. Bartók showed a way forward for modern composition in his last two quartets, represented here by no. 5 (last heard from the Takács at the Corcoran in 2008, when we called for them to perform the complete quartets of Bartók here in Washington). Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had a great ear for talent, commissioned this quartet, ensuring that its world premiere would be right here in Washington, at the Library of Congress in 1935. Post-Romantic retrogression was not the way, but neither was the total abandonment of tonality, for the latter was difficult to reconcile with the folk music that he had spent so much time studying and preserving. If pressed, I would choose the fifth quartet as my favorite of the cycle, and the Takács gets all of the gestures and sounds compressed into its five-movement arch, symmetries within symmetries: the singing of frogs and buzz of insects, the folk dance rhythms, the send-up of a Viennese serenade, here played not too beautifully, with a sense of the grotesque.

The cycle concludes tonight, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, and tickets still remain.

Emerson Quartet, Warmth in the Ice

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Journeys (Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg), Emerson Quartet, P. Neubauer, C. Carr

The Emerson's current season in Washington, the first with new cellist Paul Watkins, began in October at the Kennedy Center. After missing the first of their concerts on the Smithsonian Associates series, I braved the icy weather for the second one, Sunday evening at the National Museum of Natural History. In October, there were minor intonation inconsistencies heard from Watkins, but encouraging signs of a breakthrough towards a new group sound in the Britten quartet they played. Once again here, the Emersons seemed to be moving away from their strident, forceful way with the music towards a warmer palette of sound. The opening work, Mozart's sixteenth quartet (E-flat major, K. 428), was the best example of this, with just the right tempos and the overall tenor of the work set by the mysterious opening unison melody. There were tiny problems, including what sounded like a slipped beat in the first movement, but all were covered nicely, and the golden color of the ensemble sound seemed to strike into new territory, especially in the inner movements, with Eugene Drucker's sweet-toned first violin complemented nicely by the spicier second violin of Philip Setzer.

The Emerson Quartet's Bartók quartets have generally ranked somewhere below our favorite, the Takács Quartet, but the modified sound from the group turned their performance of the second quartet more in that direction, drawing out the softer, speech-like, folkish elements in the first movement, including some beautiful murmuring textures. The more discordant parts were still hammered and clashing, but nicely voiced rather than just walloped, with a second movement that still sounded savage without being overpowered, flurries of notes played with gravitas and nerve, and a particularly effective mutes-on section. Setzer's more powerful tone better suited to first violin here, in the burning, moody lament of the third movement, marked by an intensity that never flagged.

Beginning with their November concert at the Smithsonian and concluding with the next concert in January, the Emersons are performing all three of Beethoven's op. 59 ("Rasumovsky") quartets. With no. 2, in E minor, the group seemed to return more to its normal, more strident sound, pushing the tempos to the fast side just a bit, forcing the tone a little bit, which caused some intonation issues, especially in the first movement. The second movement, at a tempo that did not seem quite slow enough for Adagio Molto, had some lovely moments, while the third movement was the most satisfying, a relaxed Allegretto with playful syncopations and a more controlled sound, especially in the rollicking major-key trio. The finale hit the Emersons in the wheelhouse, with its jaunty dotted rhythms driving the piece to a thrilling conclusion.

The next concert by the Emerson Quartet's Smithsonian Associates series will be on January 12, 2014, at the National Museum of Natural History.

Ionarts-at-Large: Artemis Splendor

While the Labeque Sisters occupied the main hall (Großer Saal) of the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Artemis Quartet was playing the very modestly filled smaller Mozart Saal for their November 19^th recital of Haydn-Bartók-Brahms. Perhaps a commentary on the state of

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Bartók and Hungarian Modernism

Here is a cool idea -- a new exhibit, Allegro Barbaro: Béla Bartok et la modernité hongroise, 1905-1920 at the Musée d'Orsay, juxtaposes the music of Béla Bartók with the paintings of a group of Hungarian modernists known as the Group of Eight, who were exhibited in Budapest around the time of the composer's first performance of his Allegro Barbaro. Ariane Bavelier and Thierry Hillériteau have an article (À Orsay, Bela Bartok pris dans les toiles, November 19) for Le Figaro (my translation):

Everything was done with the staging of the exhibit to make Bartók's music resonate in the light of his painter compatriots. With, for example, real "cocoons" in the form of niches where you can curl up to listen to excerpts of Bartók's scores. The entrance into the exhibit is made to the rhythms of his Two Portraits for Orchestra. An introspective gesture -- the first of these portraits explicitly quotes his own violin concerto -- that does not shrink from self-ridicule. It was, three years before the triumphal march of the Allegro Barbaro, the already ill-tempered self-portrait of a young composer, both an activist and an innovator. Other self-portraits face off with it, those of painters whom one follows throughout the exhibit. We are in "the age of revolution in Hungarian art." Dezsö Czigány, a gypsy, paints himself with a green reflection, József Nemes-Lampérth, in pink tie and blue collar, works with a knife in barbaric tones. Robert Berény and Sandor Ziffer reinterpret in their own ways the canvas where Gauguin paints himself, in 1893, wearing a straw hat.

The Nemes-Lampérth self-portrait, shown here, was painted in 1911, the same year as Bartók's Allegro Barbaro (embedded below, with the composer at the keyboard). The exhibit, whose concept hits all the right receptors in my brain, will be in Paris through January 5.

Briefly Noted: More Faustian Bartók

Bartók, Violin Concertos 1/2, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, D. Harding (released on August 13, 2013) HMC 902146 | 57'59"

You can throw another top-notch recording of Bartók's two violin concertos on the pile. Why would so many of the leading violinists of our time make recordings of the Bartók concertos? The answer is in the music, two pieces that feature some exquisite writing for the violin as well as head-spinning technical challenges (especially no. 2, heard live most recently from Midori and Leonidas Kavakos). Faust's rendition of the first concerto, from the first decade of the 20th century, stands out for her sheer gorgeousness of tone in the radiant soft passages. The same is true of the shimmering flautando sound in the much more raucous second concerto, from the 1930s, overall the more dissonant and barbaric of the two. No. 2's menacing middle movement, with some dazzingly inventive orchestration, sounds vaguely like haunted Britten in some ways. These qualities distinguished her recording of the Berg concerto, too.

Faust generally makes up for indulging in this kind of delicacy with a vocal garrulousness in the fast movements, often at dizzying tempi (the finale of no. 2, for example), which still feels more urgent than rushed (a quality also observed in her Schumann sonatas). The German violinist continues to rise in my estimation, after a fine Beethoven set and her solo Bartók recording. You can hear some of her thoughts on these concertos in her interview with John Clare (MP3). Among the best of other recent recordings, Faust contends with James Ehnes with Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic (Chandos), packaged with the Viola Concerto, which is a nice touch; Arabella Steinbacher with Marek Janowski and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Pentatone); and Thomas Zehetmair with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which is more sharp-edged and the best in terms of both conductor and orchestra. Zehetmair is even a hair faster in the finale of no. 2, but his legato/pianissimo playing is not nearly as heart-melting as Faust's.