This is a fascinating
survey of a large part of Bartók’s
mature music for the piano by a Hungarian-American
pianist who has achieved a high reputation
in this repertoire. Reading Eroica’s
marketing information, I was impressed
by the fact that de Toth was the only
American to have participated in the
festival in Budapest commemorating the
50th anniversary of Bartók’s
death. Rather less so that she will
be the first woman to record all Bartók’s
piano music. I thought we had left gender
distinctions well behind in these matters.
One could very roughly
categorise the music on these five CDs
as:-
- The better known or bigger works:
Sonatina, Sonata, Out of Doors.
- Short but ambitious pieces in Bartók’s
trenchant idiom; for example, the
Seven Sketches, the Three Burlesques
and the Allegro Barbaro.
- The collections of short pieces,
such as those based on East European
folk tunes.
Unless you are a Bartók
specialist, there will be a lot of music
in this collection that will be new
to you!
It is immediately obvious
that June de Toth is well up to the
task of projecting the music on all
points on the spectrum. At the dynamic
end, the toccata-like finale of the
Sonata from 1926 has all the percussive
brilliance required, tempered with a
refined musicality. The liner notes
mention her interpretative angle as
‘lyrical and romantic’ which seems to
me to work very well both in moderating
the apparent brutality of the more overtly
aggressive music and in shaping the
many delightful little pieces.
As for the collections,
it was a real voyage of discovery to
listen to a whole sequence in one sitting,
something I can’t imagine doing again,
at least for the 42 Hungarian Folk Songs!
Surely a recording like this is for
dipping into and savouring from time
to time and, if one is a pianist, to
discover new and interesting material
for exploration. There are many lovely
miniatures here which, while they will
never be well known, present the enquiring
piano-lover with a treasure trove of
riches. I will certainly be checking
out the Bartók section on my
next visit to Chappells!
To take one example,
the Nine Little Piano Pieces make a
fascinating set with two-part inventions
- a cross between Bach and Debussy –
mixed with witty and slightly bizarre
genre pieces. Reordered with the contrapuntal
pieces interspersed, the set would form
the modern equivalent of a Couperin
ordre.
In some ways, the most
interesting pieces on the set are those
that are less well known than, say,
the Sonata but which exhibit all the
hallmarks of Bartók’s style into
which all his disparate influences –
Liszt, Debussy, folk-music – were completely
assimilated. For example, the Two Elegies
are powerful, intense pieces, very pianistic
in a Lisztian way. The Burlesques would
also make strong recital pieces for
the virtuoso pianist. June de Toth projects
both these sets in a completely convincing
manner
There is one singular
feature of this CD set of which any
potential purchaser must be aware. The
recording acoustic is very close and
still; there is no air around the notes.
Clearly this must have been intended
and it certainly leads to a truthful
piano sound, in the sense that the piano
is the only sound that you hear. The
fact that the piano is a top-of-the-range
Baldwin sounding in very good shape
could be the only thing that stops you
from thinking ‘grade 3 demonstration
tape made by teacher in living room’
if the first track you hear is one of
the Ten Easy Pieces.
I got used to the sound
but you might sometimes miss the extra
energy a livelier acoustic gives. June
de Toth’s performance of ‘With Drums
and Pipes’ from Out of Doors sounds
pallid in comparison with that of Murray
McLachlan on his recent Chisholm/
Bartók et al CD. However,
a lot of the music in this collection
has a domestic flavour for which this
recorded ambience is entirely appropriate.
In summary, I thoroughly
recommend this set. The performances
are well thought out and meticulously
prepared. There are lively and sensitive
versions of the ‘big’ works and caring
accounts of the many beautiful little
pieces that in some way are really the
essence of Bartók.
.
Roger Blackburn
June de Toth (piano) 
