Karl Amadeus Hartmann / Béla Bartok

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The Hartmann, completed in 1933, shows the influence of Berg's Lyric Suite as well as Bartók's 1928 quartet, with which it shares this outstanding disc. Hartmann went into "inner exile" after the Nazi takeover, refusing to allow his work to be published or performed in Germany. Performed abroad, the quartet won a Swiss prize in 1936. It's a powerful work, with a dark, tragic opening that gives way to furious outbursts and energetic declamations. Making an immediate impact, it should not be missed, especially in the Zehetmair Quartet's spontaneous, tingling performance. The Bartók is much better known and faces sturdy competition from the Takács, Emerson, Juilliard, and Vegh Quartets. But those are encased in complete sets and the Zehetmair's performance warrants duplication because it combines technical perfection with an interpretive freedom that gets to the heart of this masterpiece. Vivid engineering helps make this essential for lovers of modern chamber music. --Dan Davis

Tracks:

Str Qt No.1 'Carillon': Langsam - Sehr Lebhaft
Str Qt No.1 'Carillon': Con Sordino
Str Qt No.1 'Carillon': Con Tutta Forza
Str Qt No.4: Allegro
Str Qt No.4: Prestissimo, Con Sordino
Str Qt No.4: Non Troppo Lento
Str Qt No.4: Allegretto Pizzicato
Str Qt No.4: Allegro Molto

Amazon.com

The Hartmann, completed in 1933, shows the influence of Berg's Lyric Suite as well as Bartók's 1928 quartet, with which it shares this outstanding disc. Hartmann went into "inner exile" after the Nazi takeover, refusing to allow his work to be published or performed in Germany. Performed abroad, the quartet won a Swiss prize in 1936. It's a powerful work, with a dark, tragic opening that gives way to furious outbursts and energetic declamations. Making an immediate impact, it should not be missed, especially in the Zehetmair Quartet's spontaneous, tingling performance. The Bartók is much better known and faces sturdy competition from the Takács, Emerson, Juilliard, and Vegh Quartets. But those are encased in complete sets and the Zehetmair's performance warrants duplication because it combines technical perfection with an interpretive freedom that gets to the heart of this masterpiece. Vivid engineering helps make this essential for lovers of modern chamber music. --Dan Davis

Britten: Frank Bridge Variations; Bartok: Divertimento; Hartmann: Concerto Funèbre [Hybrid SACD]

Average customer rating:

Britten: Frank Bridge Variations; Bartok: Divertimento; Hartmann: Concerto Funèbre [Hybrid SACD]

Manufacturer: Pentatone
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music

Average customer rating:

BUT WHY?
Great Recordings
A must for lovers of modern music

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music

Manufacturer: Col Legno
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Trios | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Choruses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000038IDI
Release Date: 1999-11-15

Amazon.com

It starts, appropriately enough, with Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question, which seems to hold its breath, and occasionally exhale in brief bursts of panic, as the new century unfolds. It ends with Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony Op. 110a (based on his String Quartet No. 8), whose alternating sequences of anguish, alarm, and derision come as close as possible for absolute music to indicting its bloody history--eight CDs and over 30 works later.

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music represents as fine a look back at musical modernism as you're likely to get. And in what a lavish package! A tall box holding two multi-CD jewel boxes and a beautifully printed booklet with photographs of modern and postmodern architecture and extensive liner notes (in German). Even the CDs themselves look handsome. All the more amazing when you realize that the entire set was digitally recorded live--with coughs, turning pages, chair creaks, and vivid sound--during one week in 1998 in Stuttgart (where, it seems, you have to travel nowadays even to hear about this kind of music), by such groups as the RSO Saarbrücken and the Bamberger Symphoniker, led by Dennis Russell Davies, Michael Gielen, Heinz Holliger, and other risk takers. Each CD has been programmed around a theme; for example, "Explosion/Implosion" (featuring Varèse and Mahler's tone poem Totenfeier, later becoming the first movement of his Second Symphony) and "Minimal Postludien," which includes (heads up, completists) Philip Glass's Echorus for two solo violins and string orchestra and Ligeti's Ramifications. Stravinsky, who, like Schoenberg and Cage, appears to cast a long shadow over this imposing collection, remains one of the highlights: a sharp, fiercely erotic performance of Le Sacre by Lothar Zagrosek and the Stattsorchester Stuttgart that helps remind us how much modern music has done, in the face of controversy and disaster, to ground us in our humanity. --Robert Burns Neveldine

Customer Reviews:

BUT WHY?.......2002-05-15

At eight cds, this could have been a hefty set of 20th century orchestral music. But somewhere along the line, around the beginning of planning the festival I'm guessing, something went horribly wrong. There were eight concerts, each with a theme. The pieces chosen have often only a tenuous connection with the theme, if any. There are no women composers. There are no composers from Romania. There are no composers from the Czech Republic. There are no composers from Poland. That means no Gubuidulina, no Ana-Marie Avram, no Joan Tower. That means no Dumitrescu or Janacek or Lutoslawski. Can you believe it? A collection of twentieth century orchestral music with no Lutoslawski? Verily it boggleth the mind.

But so what? Are the pieces they did play well played? Well, sometimes. Gielen and Zender get predictably excellent results. But much of the rest sounds for all the world like first reads. Extremely sensitive and polished first reads to be sure, but no sense of piece qua piece, a thing with a shape from start to finish. (This is most apparent in the eccentric phrasing.) These are not the newer pieces, either, but Ives and Ravel and Bartok and Stravinsky. You know these people have played these pieces dozens of times. No excuse.

It's hard to fault a company (Col legno) that puts out so many fine performances of the likes of Helmut Lachenmann, but in this venture I really think they dropped the ball.

Great Recordings.......2000-12-30

I wish I could read in German! This is the only "flaw" of this edition, in my opinion: it seems to have a great booklet, but I can't read it. Otherwise, it is a great collection: excelent recordings, good choice of works. I find it an excelent intro to modern music.

A must for lovers of modern music.......2000-06-26

This 8 CD collection contains a wonderfully diverse selection of works that trace the development of music through the century. This set contains music form the pivotal artists from the beginning of the century; Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, Ives and Varese. Master from later in the century include; Messiaen, Carter, Boulez, Cage, Feldman, Kurtag, Schnittke, Glass, and Ligeti. From the late romanticism of Mahler, to the impressionism of Ravel and Debussy, the atonality of the Second Viennese, the neo-styles of Stravinsky, Kurtag, Schostakovich, and Schnittke, to the minimalism of Glass, this collection has it all. Also within this collection are some classic compositions by lesser known masters such as; Maderna, Nono, Kagel. Rihm, Zimmerman, Furrer, and Lachenmann to name a few. Dennis Russell Davies, Michael Gielen, Heinze Holliger, and Hans Zender conduct superb performances of most of these classics. There is much to cherich in this collection, and are many treasures to be discovered.

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

Track Listings

Chicago XIV [Extra tracks] [Original recording remastered]

La Sonnambula

Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Ma Rainey

Comforter [Limited Edition] [Import]

Pure Acoustic [Import]

Fire Bush

Hymns & Voices

Handel: Belsazar

Album Review: 20 Best of Bluegrass

Family

Horrorscope [Enhanced] [Explicit Lyrics]

Entre Pecho Y Espada

Exitos de Paquita, Vol. 1 [Karaoke]

Runaway Soul

Heart & Soul