Primary teaching materials rarely make for stimulating musical entertainment, and the first two books of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos will only be of real interest to those readers who are actually learning to play them. Some items in Book 3 work better and there are even more in Book 4; but, generally speaking, one has to delve into the last two books to find the most effective concert repertoire. And yet, viewed as a whole, Mikrokosmos harbours countless clues and cross-references to Bartok’s larger-scale pieces, both rhythmically and harmonically, and anyone learning the rudiments of piano music from them will gain a thorough knowledge of the composer’s inimitable style. Bartok’s skills as a miniaturist are virtually everywhere in evidence, even though for most collectors only the second of these two CDs is likely to provide anything like a satisfying listening experience.
As ever, Zoltan Kocsis takes a scholarly view of the texts, scrupulously attending to dynamics and metronome markings, as well as to various derivations from folk music and the few programmatic clues that Bartok appended to certain of the pieces (‘Stumblings’, ‘From the Diary of a Fly’ and so on). Mezzo-soprano Marta Lukin takes the vocal line in those few items that suggest one, and Karoly Mocsari plays second piano in Nos. 43, 44, 55, 68, 74 and 95. Kocsis’s playing is heavily influenced by Bartok’s own, especially in ‘Ostinato’ and the magnificent ‘Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm’ that end the cycle. Some of the slower items, such as ‘Whole-tone Scale’ (No. 136) and ‘Minor Seconds’, ‘Major Seventh’ (No. 144) are as musically intense as anything else in Bartok’s piano output and Kocsis performs them most persuasively. Certainly, no one is more capable of making the simpler pieces sound musically meaningful.
With excellent sound and expert annotation, Kocsis’s Mikrokosmos is fully on a par with previous CDs in this marvellous Bartok series (1/94, 11/94 and 7/97); but any recommendation must, in this instance, be qualified by expressive limitations in the music – or at least a good half of it.'