Like all the finest teaching material, Bartok's violin duos are accessible to virtually all levels of technical accomplishment yet conceal meanings which only the finest artists can bring out. Vegh and Lysy are certainly in the latter category, and listening to all 44 pieces in one go, although not something one would often choose to do, is no hardship when the playing is of this order. This is partly a tribute to their care in devising a satisfying sequence of pieces, with variety of pace, dynamic and technical difficulty, but avoiding constant arbitrary fluctuation (Bartok stated that the published order was for pedagogic purposes only and not to be followed in performance). One particularly revealing conjunction is of Nos. 43, 22 and 36, which might all be taken as studies for the Fourth or Fifth String Quartets (the composition of the Duos falls between those two masterpieces).
Intelligent planning is actually less important to the success of the record than the sheer pungency of the violin playing. The resiny attack, the physical contact of horsehair on gut and steel, is vividly captured in a close-miked recording, and it lends an unmistakably idiomatic quality to all the varied moods. Vegh and Lysy sound ideally matched in temperament—no trace of the compromise or struggle for supremacy which such enterprises can produce. If you buy this record to fill a gap or out of curiosity you will probably get a far richer experience than you bargained for.'