Bartok - Music for S, P and C/Mahler - Adagio, Symphony nr. 10

Listened to Ferenc Fricsay's reading of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, on LP (dating from 1954). Although there is much to admire, it will likely not become my favourite recording. It is mono, which is a distinct disadvantage in a piece where the string orchestra is divided into two antiphonal groups. The orchestra is set in a rather hollow acoustic, which drowns a lot of the percussion details. The timps sound unattractively muffled. But I found much to enjoy in the string playing, despite the RIAS Berlin orchestra likely not having been a top ensemble. But maybe it's just that, and the fact that in those times Bartok's music will not have been as thoroughly absorbed in players' collective memories as it is today, which put players on edge in this recording.

Anyway I picked something up from this recording that didn't strike me from listening to any of the other versions. Suddenly, towards the end of the first movement, when the fugue subject plays softly over its inversion, the oscillating strings reminded me of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. More particularly, the hesitant passage in the strings right before the climatic dissonant chord in the Adagio's coda came to mind. So, I put on Ormandy's early recording of the Deryck Cooke performing version (taped in November 1967 at the occasion of the US premiere). It is a splendid reading with the Philadelphians in Olympian form. And indeed, from the very beginning the stark chromaticism of the movement's first theme, presented by the violas, sotto voce, reveals the kinship with Bartok's piece. Another thing that strikes in both compositions is the constantly changing meter.  Furthermore, there may be an harmonic relationship as well. The opening Andante of Bartok's Music is anchored in the tonic of A, on which the movement begins and ends. This tonality is also pivotal in the Adagio. Jörg Rothmann writes in the Cambridge Companion to Mahler (p. 154) about the climatic passage at the end of the symphony's first movement: "It is also interesting that the starting point from which all the tension of the ensuing sonority grows is an unaccompanied A, two above the middle C, in the first violins. The chord is built up in four stages with triads below and above, first forte, then fortissimo. The initial pitch, A, is then continued alone in the trumpets after the nine-note chord. The final condensed combination of the unaccompanied A and the abrupt tutti repetition of the nine-note chord suggests that the choice of this pitch, held for then bars in all, is to be understood symbolically as the initial, and only 'playable', letter of the name 'Alma'."  Of course, I may be completely mistaken in looking for these correspondences and they are likely completely anecdotal, but it keeps one involved anyway.