One might call this delightful collection “Richard Strauss in Hungary”, so obvious – and nourishing – is the German master’s influence on both composers. Bartok’s two early essays are, like Beethoven’s first published piano concertos, catalogued in reverse order – the ‘Op. 1’ Rhapsody having been composed after the ‘Op. 2’ Scherzo. Both combine Lisztian exuberance with a notably Straussian sound-palette. The Rhapsody conforms to the standard ‘slow-fast’ pattern favoured by Liszt and Enescu while the Scherzo is more reminiscent of Bartok’s restlessly mobile First Violin Concerto (I’m thinking specifically of that work’s second movement). Anyone sampling, say, 4'04'' into the Scherzo’s “Introduzione”, where sugary string writing and aromatic woodwinds predominate, would hardly recognize the future composer of Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. And yet both these early works abound in winsome ideas and creative originality, the Scherzo offering somewhat more in the way of stylistic premonitions – especially in the direction of The Wooden Prince ballet.
Dohnanyi’s Variations on a Nursery Theme provides a further helping of versicoloured fare, ingeniously scored and with a portentously Wagnerian opening that bursts to reveal a one-finger Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman – better known to British youngsters as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Zoltan Kocsis brings zealous enthusiasm both to Bartok’s expressively extravagant piano writing and the multifarious gestures in Dohnanyi’s Variations. Ivan Fischer’s Budapest Festival Orchestra play with considerable character (woodwinds excel in the Bartok works) and the recordings have plenty of body.
Now that Philips have reissued Kocsis’s recording of the Bartok piano-and-orchestra canon, perhaps they could relocate Fischer’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (a good performance, included in the original three-disc set, 1/88) with, say, Dorati’s Concertgebouw Concerto for Orchestra. It would make a fairly competitive Solo disc. Which reminds me, why reissue these six- to ten-year-old recordings at full price?'