BARTOK: Violin Concertos 1 & 2, Piano Concertos 1-3, Two Portraits - Kyung Wha Chung, Pascal Roge, Iona Brown, Chantal Juillet, Charles Dutoit, Simon Rattle (2 CDs)

This well-filled 2 CD set – nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes long – presents Bartók’s major concertos (the Viola Concerto appears on another Eloquence CD). The three Piano Concertos appear in muscular and sumptuously recorded performances (one of the finest examples of Decca’s 1970s engineering at the venerated Kingsway Hall) by Pascal Rogé and Walter Weller. Likewise, the Second Violin Concerto resurrects a long-buried 1980 Argo recording by the late Iona Brown with none other than Sir Simon Rattle conducting. The First Violin Concerto, the result of an ultimately called-off love affair with Stefi Geyer, found its music rechannelled into the ‘Two Portraits’ and in Kyung Wha Chung and Chantal Juillet, respectively, you find two of the composer’s most persuasive advocates.

BELA BARTÓK
CD1
Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz 36*

Kyung Wha Chung, violin
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Georg Solti

Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz 83*
Piano Concerto No. 2, Sz 95*

Pascal Roge, piano
London Symphony Orchestra
Walter Weller

CD2
Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz 112*

Iona Brown,violin
Philharmonia Orchestra
Simon Rattle

Two Portraits, Sz 37

Chantal Juillet, violin
Orchestre symphonique de Montreal
Charles Dutoit

Piano Concerto No. 3, Sz 119*

Pascal Roge, piano
London Symphony Orchestra
Walter Weller

* FIRST RELEASE ON CD