Uncompromising Integrity Music by Béla Bartók - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON '... a joy to hear.'

Having often stumbled through cello parts of the Bartók string quartets, I had certainly earned an invitation some moons ago to the unveiling of his London statue outside South Kensington Station. The dapper little image with characteristic hat made a pleasant complement to such astringent music. But then the statue disappeared, and I could only assume it had gone, like Mozart's Commendatore, to take daily dinners with Stravinsky, whose view of Bartók was typically concise: 'I never liked his music anyway.'

I have no means of knowing whether the Baltimore Orchestra likes its female conductor, Marin Alsop...

BELA BARTOK

MARIN ALSOP

NAXOS

HUNGARY

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC