* Bartok's Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra, Sz. 115.
* Stephane Lemelin, Andrew Tunis, pianos; Kenneth Simpson, Jonathan Wade,
percussion.  Ottawa Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Currie.
* Ottawa, January 24th 2005.

Bartok's 1937 Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz.  110, is one of
the great musical masterpieces, I have long thought, so this performance
of its orchestrated version has been much anticipated.

As to this work's origin, the scarcity of appropriate venues for the
Sonata apparently prompted Bartok to orchestrate it in hopes of larger
audiences.  He and his wife Ditta Pasztory played the resulting Concerto
for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra on January 21st 1943 -- its
premiere date and, incidentally, the composer's very last concert
performance.

Other works were played on this cold Ottawa night, but the orchestrated
Concerto was the featured piece.  All things considered, though, its
performance fell far short of expectations.

During the performance I was struck at how Bartok's Concerto is not just
the lesser work, but how very much it disappoints.  Put very briefly,
the edge of the Sonata's lucid, essentially polyrhythmic core is mostly
lost by transferring to the orchestra some of what the soloists in the
chamber arrangement discharge by other, simpler means.

Mind you, if Bartok had not composed the Sonata, or if one were ignorant
of it, this Concerto might stand among the great Piano Concertos of its
century.  But how much more can be achieved with the piano-and-percussion
foursome, which is replete with rhythmic incident, musical ideas and
minor climaxes.  Comparatively, this far less economically chiselled,
nowhere as sharply-shaped Concerto almost verges on the dull.

To my ear, the percussionists played superbly; in all other respects,
things fell short of the mark.  I do not mean to speak ill of the
performers, who deserve their applause just for traversing this thorny
musical thicket without mishap.  That must be a fiendish task in either
version, given the many technical minefields and the unforgiving ensemble
requirements -- especially since each player has such a palpable impact
on the musical outcomes.  These performers tip-toed around the major
challenges proficiently, although, as a result, that something really
sublime that this work can provide was not rendered.

Praise about proficiency sounds like a meagre accolade to give the
performers, so I must own up to a final mitigating factor, without doubt
the vital one: my expectations of either version of this work have been
ruined by listening carefully to several recorded versions of it.  The
piece has intrigued me for 25 years, and I even had a chance to attend
a performance of the Sonata in Toronto in the 1980s.  But that was then
and this is now, and only a miracle performance could impress, as it now
competes with a new, very puffed-up ideal.

This epitome -- which is grossly unfair to foist on any performers --
has the clarity of sound, artistic panache, and unity of purpose of the
Kontarsky brothers' recording (on DG), yet also the near-luxuriant rubato
applied by the composer and his wife in the slow movement (Hungaroton,
in mono).  Further, the Richter/Lobanov team's sense of controlled abandon
illuminates the whole work, particularly its third movement, where an
overlooked, near-circular rumbling passage is highlighted as the end
approaches (a 'live' Philips).  My ideal version ends with the gentle
tension shaped by Bernstein (mono CBS rec.  premiere), anticipating the
graceful delivery by Gold/Fizdale of the work's two closing chords.

Not likely to be heard soon on any stage in Ottawa, or elsewhere.

Bert Bailey