Bartók with original sound
Kamillo Lendvay has written an anniversary piece for Bartók, a varied viola solo. Donald Maurice and Claudine Bigelow have adapted Bartók's violin duets for viola and provided them with a revealing audio document.
The Hungarian composer Kamillo Lendvay, born in 1928, honored the 50th anniversary of Béla Bartók's death in 1995 with the composition of a Study for solo viola, which was finally published in 2015. It makes expressive use of the entire range of the viola up to the middle of the A-string; beginning thoughtfully, moving forward in various tempi and exciting rhythmic combinations, sometimes asymmetrically moving, sometimes metrically pounding and ending calmly - an exciting solo lasting around 7 minutes!
The violin school initiated by Erich and Elma Doflein for their violin school 44 Duets for two violins in ascending difficulty were composed by Béla Bartók in 1931. Universal published 36 of them in 1994, Atelier-Editions Röhm recently published them all in two volumes and Editio Musica Budapest (EMB) last year in one volume for viola. Everything is a fifth lower and otherwise identical to the violin version. The special thing about EMB is that the publishers have made a CD of the duets in the viola version: Voices from the Past: Béla Bartók's Duos & Original Field Recordings, Tantara Records, 2013, because Bartók placed great importance on these duets - as well as his Microcosm for piano - folk melodies that he recorded in Algeria, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia and the Ukraine, some of them with an Edison phonograph on wax cylinders. These recordings can be listened to on the CD for a deeper understanding and the lyrics of the songs can be read in the booklet in the original languages and in English.
Kamillo Lendvay, Study for viola, Z. 14953, Fr. 18.80, Editio Musica Budapest 2015
Béla Bartók: 44 Duos for 2 Violas, transcribed by Donald Maurice and Claudine Bigelow, Z. 14970, Fr. 22.70, Editio Musica Budapest 2016
