Bartok - Music for String, Percussion and Celesta

It's time to move on, it seems. I have listened now so many times to this piece and I must say that it is fiendishly difficult to find a well-rounded, engaging performance.

Tonight I listened first to a performance with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer. It's a recording from 1985, taped by Hungaroton engineers at an unspecified location in Budapest, and marketed by Philips. It's not a bad reading but rather run of the mill. What is disturbing is the generic, lifeless quality of the strings. Maybe it's just a typical early digital recording, maybe the orchestra had not had enough time together to produce a more vibrant string sound (the BFO had been established just two years earlier and was still functioning very much as a project ensemble). Anyway, I certainly missed the excitement I had experienced at a live concert with the same orchestra and conductor 20 years later.

Then came a disappointing trio of recordings on vinyl. First the Reiner/CSO which I also have on CD. This particular LP had not been taken through a Keith Monks treatment and it showed. The acidic highs made listening well nigh impossible. A pity as it is probably the most compelling version available at this point.

After that a recording with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim (EMI, presumably from 1972). A scrappy affair with a small ensemble that was clearly ill at ease in this music. The whole thing struck me as extremely contrived and underrehearsed. For those interested, it can be downloaded in lossless format here. There's also a contemporaneous Gramophone review on that site which is far too polite in my opinion in pointing out occasional problems of intonation. I found the recording average at best.

Finally a version with the Philarmonia Hungarica under Antal Dorati on Philips. Another a muddy recording which didn't bring anything new in my opinion. I will likely not revisit it.

So it looks like, for the time being, we will have to rely on either the Reiner recording (dating from 1956!) or the Boulez live concert in the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall.