Bela Bartók
Complete Works for Violin
Volume 1 - Early Works and Transcriptions
CD - Brand New/Sealed
Antal Zalai - Violin
Jozsef Balog - Piano
In Bartók’s earliest works the influences of Liszt and Richard Strauss
are never far away. In the early 1900s the young composer had studied
many of Strauss’s scores, attempting a symphony in E flat. Gradually the
music of his native Hungary began to influence his musical voice as can be
heard in the E minor violin sonata. The Austro-German musical hold on
him was slipping. He took to wearing Hungarian national clothes, and
rebelled at speaking German at home. Shortly after completing the violin
sonata in 1903 he left for the countryside where he became interested
in the folk music and songs of his countrymen. His research with fellow
composer Zoltan Kodaly of Hungarian folk music is famous, but Bartók
went beyond national boundaries for inspiration, as can be heard in the
Transylvanian, Romanian and Slovak folk material featured on this disc
of his early works for violin and piano.
This CD, the first volume of a 4-CD "complete works" project is a collection of little-known Bartók music, from the beginning of his career, providing
fascinating insights on his development as a composer, and the
importance of folk music in his compositions.