Hungarian Classics:Brahms/Liszt/Bartok

The public's perception of Hungarian music was largely shaped by the stylized Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt and, to a lesser extent, the Hungarian Dances of Johannes Brahms; but awareness of the greater depth and complexity of this nationalist music has been raised, due to the intensive musicological researches of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly, and the full range of ethnic expressions has been revealed to be much greater than the quaint gypsy music fabricated in the nineteenth century. While this compilation pays tribute to Liszt with an orchestral version of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and to Brahms with an assortment of his best-known Hungarian Dances, it goes farther in including arrangements of folk songs, dances, and concert music by other composers with a claim to Hungarian heritage. Thus, folk-oriented vocal and instrumental works by Bartok and Kodaly are presented, along with the once enormously popular Czardas No. 4, "Hejre Kati," of Jeno Hubay and the less familiar Hungarian Overture of Bela Keler. The performances range in time from 1960 to 1982, and the analog and digital recordings were drawn from Edel Classics' backlist, the source for all the titles in Berlin Classics' budget Basics series. The resonant playing of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig is perhaps the most satisfying of the album, though the other orchestras turn in decent performances, notably the Grosses Orchester des Deutschlandsenders in "Hejre Kati" and the Dresdner Philharmonie in excerpts from Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite. The reproduction of this disc is generally good for a mix of old recordings, though it falls short of contemporary audio standards. But note that the listing of tracks does not exactly correspond to the CD: "Hejre Kati" is actually on track 13, not 15 as listed, and the rest of the program is off by two tracks.