Those of us who regularly use a score while listening run the risk of hearing only what we see (rather than vice versa), which is why it's so terribly important to assess a performance both with and without visual guidance. However, there are cases where detail is so abundant and the 'pick up' of phrase between instruments so natural, that the printed page is rendered fairly superfluous – at least for listeners. Take, for example, this cogently argued Concerto for Orchestra which, although less overtly characterful than Rattle's and less virtuosic than Reiner's, boasts a clarity, intelligence and calm sense of purpose that lend the work an almost symphonic logic. The engineering, too, is usefully revealing.
The tuba 'tells' in welcome perspective, whether when bolstering the bass line (as in the big quasi-fugal build-up at 7'43'' into the first movement) or playing piano espressivo 2'46'' into ''Intermezzo interrotto''. The horns also emerge with new-found clarity, especially when backing fortissimo divisi strings at 2'35'' into the Introduction. Hindemith springs to mind in the ''Giuoco delle coppie''(more so than is usual); the ''Elegia'' is tautly argued, and the tranquillo section of the finale is notably sensitive, with a particularly meaningful bass clarinet at 2'19''. Don't expect a high-octane, tough-fisted tour de force (although the closing pages have plenty of impact), but readers in search of a lively, keen-eyed and superbly recorded overview are unlikely to be disappointed.
The Concerto for Orchestra was Bartok's last completed orchestral work, whereas Kossuth was his first. To be quite honest, it's a pretty weak piece, full of obvious derivations (Strauss, Wagner, Liszt and so on) although you do occasionally hear intimations of Bartok's own First Suite, and even Bluebeard's Castle. Lajos Kossuth was, to quote Decca's notes, ''the soul and motor for the campaign for Hungarian independence one and a half centuries ago''. The campaign failed but Kossuth remained a hero, especially for the youthful nationalist Bela Bartok, who commemorated him in a programmatic mini-epic, the synopsis for which reads like a sequence of silent film subtitles, i. e. ''What grief weighs upon your soul, my dear husband?''; ''Our country is in danger!''; ''All is silence, silence . . . ''. Tristan und Isolde looms large in Section 6, while the approaching Austrian troops (personified by Haydn's indelible melody) mutter among the bassoons and enter into a very clumsily wrought musical battle. 'Good fun' might seem a rather half-hearted, even patronizing form of commendation, but the performance is many times better than any before it (the recording, too) and serves as a sobering reminder of a great composer's unpromising immaturity. A valuable, artistically accomplished coupling. R1 '9507005'