Conductor Edward Gardner leads a performance of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, as well as the violin Rhapsodies on this recording.
The central piece in this recording is the Concerto for Orchestra, the largest work that Bartok completed during the last five years of his life. The composer described this music as ‘a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.’
Also on this recording are the Dance Suite, and the violin Rhapsodies, the colorful folk influences of which are revealed by James Ehnes, a specialist in the repertoire, who already has recorded the complete violin sonatas as well as the concertos for violin and for viola.
Here is the Rhapsody number 2 for violin and Orchestra:
