TRACKLISTING

Concerto for Orchestra
1 I (Introduzione). Andante non troppo
2 II (Giuoco delle coppie). Allegro scherzando
3 III (Elegia). Andante, non troppo
4 IV (Intermezzo interrotto). Allegretto
5 V (Finale). Pesante - Presto
6 I Andante tranquillo

Music for String Instruments, Percussion and Celeste
7 II Allegro
8 III Adagio
9 IV Allegro molto

ABOUT THIS SACD

A Spectacular new recording on SACD - LIVE recordings of two of Bartók's masterpieces by one of his foremost champions.

Ozawa conducts his Saito Kinen Orchestra - which he founded in 1984 in memory of his late music teacher at Tokyo's Toho School Of Music - Hideo Saito.

Béla Bartók music is characterized by defined but loose tonal centers, percussiveness (especially after a return to primitivism in the 1920s), dissonances, tone clusters, and classical forms (more and more so later). He makes use of Eastern European folk themes and rhythms. The later works become less acerbic and more approachable.

Like many of his contemporaries, Bartók wrote few original orchestral works outside the genres of concerto and ballet. The Concerto for Orchestra (Sz 116) is one of Bartoks last works, which he begun composing in the summer of 1943 at a sanatorium in the Adirondack Mountains.