Menahem Pressler plays Music for Children of Bartok

Bartok's series of Music for Children contains deceptively simple but imaginative music nonetheless. From MGM E3047, the great Menahem Pressler performs the 39 Pieces based on Slovak folksongs. Now to find volume 1 containing the Hungarian folksongs!

It's a shame that more pianists don't have a go at this genre. I suppose some turn their noses up at the brevity and apparent ease of the writing. It's not virtuoso music and will not have them standing in the aisles. Yet, the charm of these miniatures is that they will bring a smile to the face and your mind will wander, in a positive, childlike way.

What a great artist Menahem Pressler is! Tasteful, immaculately prepared, serious in that he did not approach these pieces in a condescending way. Marvelous!


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Lukas Foss conducts Sibelius from Buffalo

Here's a wonderful record, one which sort of heralded in a renaissance for the Buffalo Philharmonic in terms of recordings. Lukas Foss leads the BPO in the Four Legends from Kalevala by Sibelius. Cut in 1968, it was a byproduct of the second festival of the arts in the fair city of Buffalo. Nonesuch performed a great service by capturing these musical moments.

I always enjoy listening to Lukas Foss' musicmaking for it is inevitably well prepared and faithful to the score. Unlike his almost exact contemporary and friend, Leonard Bernstein, Foss was not one to interject too much of himself into a score to the point of overkill, nor was he a musician who relied on effect over substance. In short, the results of his work bear the stamp of honesty, integrity and intellect.
Glad I dug this one out while rearranging stuff in the cellar.

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