Naxos' A Portrait series does an incredible service to a wide range of listeners, from students and novices to professionals and seasoned connoisseurs. Virtually anyone can gain something from this series. This particular installment focuses on Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, perhaps one of the most influential and ingenious composers of the first half of the twentieth century. While compilations of movements here and segments there can be maddening, Naxos does something rather unique with two discs' worth of fragments from ...
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Naxos' A Portrait series does an incredible service to a wide range of listeners, from students and novices to professionals and seasoned connoisseurs. Virtually anyone can gain something from this series. This particular installment focuses on Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, perhaps one of the most influential and ingenious composers of the first half of the twentieth century. While compilations of movements here and segments there can be maddening, Naxos does something rather unique with two discs' worth of fragments from more than a dozen genres of compositions. Rather than a haphazard arrangement, the sequence of tracks follows along with the well-written and informative 81-page booklet included with the discs. These notes not only provide a wonderful timeline of Bartók's life, but describe the evolution of his approach to composition. Each of the tracks is used as a well-chosen musical example to demonstrate what the booklet is discussing. The notes even go so far as to call out exact times within...
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