I said that the Philharmonia was magnificent, even if Iván Fischer and Budapest Festival Orchestra [BFO] remain unsurpassed as far as the music by Bartók is concerned.
Bartók is their home specialty, and they really bring it to a new level of skills and interpretation.
If you get a chance to listen to their live performance (Bartók or anything else), it's not to be missed.
I thought I'd share two `Bartóky' videos in this post that I found particularly interesting:
- The best possible Bluebeard Castle happens always in the concert hall or an opera house. Videos cannot compensate the intensity and the connection one gets in the live performance. Looking for the stuff you can find on the Internet, I found a video on YT of the concert performance from Amsterdam last year by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (excuse me!) conducted by Iván Fischer, with Ildikó Komlósi (Judith) and Balint Szabo (brilliant Bluebeard)
- A concert by Orchestre de Paris conducted by Pierre Boulez that took place at Salle Pleyel two nights ago (December 22, 2011) has been recorded and it's available on the Internet via Arte Live Web (embedded below.) Program naturally included Schönberg (Verklärte Nacht, or La Nuit transfigurée), continued with the Piano Concerto No.2 by Bartók [Bertrand Chamayou, piano], and ended by the cherry on the cake: Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (starts from 1:42:00 in the video below.)
This video is available on Arte Live Web, and on citedelamusiquelive.tv
- An interesting detail concerning this 2nd video is that La Salle Pleyel was packed with people, in spite of the fact that almost identical concert took place a night before, but under the Louvre Pyramid, in front of the crowd of 2,500. Popular concert with pieces by Bartók and Schönberg! Ask me again why I love Paris! ;)
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