Sunday 9 January 2011

I have always been ambivalent about the music of Béla Bartok. I recognise the exemplary craftsmanship, and I enjoy many passages and themes in his music. But enjoyment of Bartok is too often cerebral, and I rarely warm to real emotions, feelings or revelations of the man behind the music. I feel the same now having just listened to the two violin concertos (and I know the second, main concerto very well by now). There simply is not the same emotion in the music that one gets, for example, in the twentieth century concertos of Elgar, Shostakovich, Britten or Sibelius.

Nevertheless, the new PentaTone recording is absolutely first rate, with a completely ideal balance between soloist and orchestra (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Marek Janowski). The thoroughly capable and admirable soloist is Arabella Steinbacher, a violinist whom I admire more and more (except, as detailed previously, for her Beethoven violin concerto).

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