Unvarnished Bartok from source. Kossuth is probably the real selling-point here; it also happens to be the roughest and readiest of these performances, which is a pity. This, of course, was young Bartok's first major orchestral outing—and how. Strauss's Zarathustra had fired him, a piano transcription of Heldenleben exercised his enthusiasm, and out come the orchestral heroics: lots of horns and rhetoric. At its heart is the 1848 Hungarian uprising and its hero, Lajos Kossuth. Heldenleben's battling critics have a lot to answer for here, and one wonders if Prokofiev had ever heard the piece before preparing Nevsky: the clash of opposing forces, each bearing the 'colours' of their national tunes (the Austrians were none too happy about the distortions of their anthem!) is not such an original idea, I know, but even so. In the aftermath of battle a lone clarinet sings out something stridently Hungarian; the coda mourns quietly—certainly this piece has its moments of pathos and promise in amongst the bathos and bombast. Part of the problem with this recording (apart, that is, from an evident lack of rehearsal) is that in accommodating the outsize orchestra, the acoustic has things somewhat its own way: definition is fuzzy and indistinct. Or is it just that the other two performances are simply better articulated?
Ferenc's Concerto for Orchestra is of good, honest stock, always mindful of its roots. Nothing fancy or fragrant about the first movement's Elysian woodwind and harp reveries (the latter's 'scrubbing' at 8'28'' is very much the emulation of a strummed guitar); nothing civilized about the brass fugato. To a side drum which here sounds closer in effect to the crudest tabor (just as it should), the National Philharmonic's reedy, ruddy woodwinds take the stage with scant regard for appearances—no fuss, no frills, no fancy dovetailing. The return of the bassoons with another talkative friend is unashamedly larger than life. That's the complexion of the reading: dynamics tend to be a little unsubtle, refinements are at a premium. The Elegie is not played out behind a gauzy haze (I love the grainy presence of string basses at the outset), the Intermezzo's 'interruption' sounds like a happy release, the finale's jaunty trumpet tune a real community sing-song affair. All in all, ruggedly authentic, highly physical.
As is The miraculous mandarin. Certainly one could quibble here that the overall ambience of the performance is not as urbane as it might be, that there is perhaps too much of the rough-end-of-town about it. One misses here the sleek insinuation of the seduction, the high-gloss sophistication (in itself so decadent) of the world's greatest orchestras. But against that one must weigh the uncompromising woodwind and brass colours: the grating cacophony of the opening cityscape (trombones and organ making no mistake as to the climax), the alley-cat clarinets, the wheezy trombone glissandos and con legno strings of the tramp's entrance, the grubby high-lying bassoon line at 7'49'', and the sheer animal velocity of the chase launched for once with a ferocious barrage of percussion, proving that no immediate concession need be made to the emergent string fugue. I hear it perfectly well. As I say, grassroots Bartok—coarse-cut, unfinished, but a welcome change from the designer variety we hear far too much of these days. It isn't Fricsay (DG) or Reiner (RCA), but then they only set down one of these three works. More's the pity.'