Bartok
The two works here bookend Bartok’s composing life. The Suite was written in 1905, when he was twenty-four, and draws upon tunes that were popular songs of the time, rather than overtly nationalist folk material. Then a liberal humanistic Hungary was the dream – a dream snuffed out with brief interludes ever since. Bartok championed Hungary’s musical heritage but he despised its right wing politics, refusing a medal for this work when it was offered by fascist sympathisers in 1936. He revised the Suite in 1920 but Thomas Dausgard has gone back to the original version and this is the first time it has been recorded in that form…