• List Price: $15.99  
• Your Price: $15.99
• In Stock: [{"available":"0"}]

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

In the work of Béla Bartók, in addition to his own instrument, the piano, a special place is given to the other most important solo instrument of the time, the violin. (...) Starting with his studies at the Music Academy in Budapest, he came into direct contact with many young violinists, while between the wars, at his concerts in Hungary and abroad in the 20s and 30s, he regularly played together with the then young Zoltán Székely and the already world-famous Joseph Szigeti. Bartók composed many violin works for his partners. For him as a composer, the choice of the genres of the concerto, the accompanied sonata, and the rhapsody had been natural since his childhood. Thus, regarding genre, both the series of Duos for two violins from 1931 and the Sonata for solo violin of 1944 are in fact unusual. Together with the Sonata for solo violin, the 44 duos represent Bartók's mature works for solo violin, in which he used the violin without a piano or orchestral accompaniment. All the more interesting, for it would be difficult to find two compositions less alike. The Sonata for solo violin is not only a piece unique in its genre, presenting extreme challenges of instrumental technique, written for a virtuoso performer, but also one of the deepest and most abstract works of the composer, whilst the 44 duos of 13 years earlier, consisting of a series of wonderful miniatures, arrangements of folk melodies, lead the violin pupil all the way from his first unsteady steps in music, to a brief concert piece still within the framework of a small form. However, as Bartók stated in an interview in 1937, his lighter compositions based on folk melodies and his more serious, abstract compositions are not essentially different, and here too the two works explain, comment on, and complement one another:.(László Vikárius)

Track Listing

Press Quotes

From the very first chord, Barnabás Kelemen's imposing sound, note-to-note concentration, and unrelenting commitment to the score defy you to relax in your listening chair. He's not afraid to dirty up the fugue's gliding double-stop and pizzicato alterations, or the climactic measures, because the music becomes more orchestral than violinistic, and that's the sonority he's after. Nor does Kelemen prettify the first-movement Chaconne's loud high notes when they're supposed to scream in your face.

     —Jed Distler, classicstoday.com

Barnabás Kelemen has garnered quite a reputation of late, not least with regard to the music of his homeland. In practice this has meant a strong repute in the chamber music of Bartók, the best-known example being his Hungaroton CD [32515] of the two sona

     —Jonathan Woolf , MusicWeb International