Two brilliant recordings of the Bartok legacy constitute this superb collation of committed interpreters, culled from outstanding sound documents from 1962 (Barshai) and 1967 (Serkin/Ozawa). Conductor Seiji Ozawa (b. 1935) enjoys a repute in the modern music of Messaien, Takemitsu, and Ligeti. Pianist Peter Serkin (b. 1947) often favors these same composers. The American composer Ned Rorem writes of Serkin, "He approaches contemporary music with the same depth as he does the classics, and he is unique among the superstars in that he approaches it at all." Russian violist and conductor Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010) helped found the Borodin String Quartet and established the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, 1955-1977. Their collaboration in the Bartok Divertimento enjoys a febrile presence and sympathetic immediacy that bears repeated auditions.

The Bartok First Concerto (1926) exploits the solo instrument percussively --including the instruction that the percussion and tympani be placed directly behind the piano-- yet, in spite of the dissonances and rough Magyar rhythms, the melodic content gains expressive power as the first movement evolves. The Andante silences the brass and strings to become the "night music" between piano and percussion that conveys Bartok's eerie sense of beauty. The concluding Allegro--Allegro molto offers a potent rondo, fast, lively, and dramatically colorful, especially as Serkin and Ozawa realize it.

The Third Concerto (1945) had the composer fighting feverishly to complete it--which he did except for seventeen final bars. Tibor Serly translated the shorthand notes to finish the score. Rather than explosive and percussive, the Third Concerto is gentle and melancholy, a present for Bartok's wife, Ditta. The first movement Allegretto is transparent and light, the textures thin and transparent, as if a simple clarity from late Beethoven had infiltrated Bartok's style. Beethoven's serenity from his Op. 132 A Minor Quartet informs the Adagio religioso, rife with "night music," bird calls, and a Bach-like two part invention. Rhythmic vitality and intricate counterpoint combine for the last movement, Allegro vivace, the last music from Bartok, who died four days later.

The Bartok three-movement Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939) was commissioned by Paul Sacher and his Basel Chamber Orchestra. Neoclassical and eclectic, the work combines Viennese and Baroque forms with Magyar modalities and irregular metric units. Eerie, dissonant, and dark, the Molto adagio asks much of the players by way of double stops and harmonics. The final Allegro assai offers dance and gypsy elements in the course its dynamically shifting textures, culminating in a solo violin cadenza before the energetic coda.

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