Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra, Fanfare for Louisville

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Bartók
James R. Oestreich wrote in the New York Times: "Paavo Järvi's adventures as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony have been well documented. … The coupling of Lutoslawski's riveting Concerto for Orchestra (1954) with the work that probably inspired it, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (1943), seems inevitable, if only on the strength of Christoph von Dohnanyi's brilliant versions with the Cleveland Orchestra from the late 1980's. … The juxtaposition pits Bartók late in his career against Lutoslawski early in his. But with their allusions to Hungarian folk music in one case and Polish in the other, they come out in much the same place. Lutoslawski's concerto is for the most part louder and brasher, offering some of the most exhilarating noise this side of Janacek's Sinfonietta. The skittish and intense 'Fanfare for Louisville,' a minute and a half long, gives at least a taste of the later Lutoslawski as well. Mr. Järvi's interpretations are everywhere persuasive, and the performances almost uniformly virtuosic. Telarc's typically expansive sound is especially gratifying in the clatter and the occasional shriek of the Lutoslawski concerto."