Bela Bartok

I just heard "Musik für Seiteninstrumente, Schlagzeug und Celesta". It is great, but I'm not sure why. Can anyone explain, or recommend something else by this dude?

Yeah. Listen to his Concerto for Orchestra. It's probably his most well known piece and it's excellent. Also look at his orchestral suites, piano concertos and the Viola Concerto.
For me, although I very much love Hungarian music, I find Bartok harder to appreciate than Kodaly. Both Bartok and Kodaly were strong advocates of Hungarian folk music and used this in their compositions. (One of my professors in university studied in Budapest and was a student of Kodaly.)

Inside Bluebeard's Castle with mise-en-scene (English?) by La Fura dels Baus was probably the most amazing opera I've seen.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
I just heard "Musik für Seiteninstrumente, Schlagzeug und Celesta". It is great, but I'm not sure why. Can anyone explain, or recommend something else by this dude?

You like it because you have good taste in music. 😉 It may have to do with the complexity of the rhythm and harmonies, or the way he uses elements of Hungarian folk music, or the instrumentation, or... well, I don't really know. My own love affair with Bartók started in childhood. As my mother is a piano teacher, we had Bartók's piano pieces for children ("Gyermekeknek" - gotta love Hungarian!) lying around, and I tried (with varying success) to play them long before I got piano lessons. I still think they are a lot of fun to play, although I wouldn't listen to a recording. When I was eight, my sister and my brother played Bartók's Rhapsody no. 2 for violin and piano (or orchestra), and I totally fell in love with that piece. It's hard to separate my personal feelings for it from its musical value, but I think it is a very nice piece, although not one of his big works.

Another piece by Bartók that I have a special relationship with is the second string quartet. I played it at a chamber music seminar, and we had a great teacher and worked very hard on it for three weeks, analysing every chord, getting into every detail, so I got a much deeper understanding of it than I had when we started playing it, opening up a whole new world. This is definitely great music, although probably not greater than some of his other string quartets (I also love the fifth very much); the reason why I love this one above the other ones is again personal and partly coincidental. But the string quartets in general are definitely recommendable.

It's "Saiteninstrumente", by the way. Even though "Seite" and "Saite" sound exactly the same, a "Seite" is a side or page, while a "Saite" is a string.

I'll second the recommendation of the string quartets.

Another for your list is The Miraculous Mandarin, Bartok's tale of urban depravity with an intense musical punch. Though originally written as a one-act pantomime ballet, these days it is usually performed as a concert suite. It was banned in Cologne in 1926, but today we can only look back at how the world has changed and how far we've come since then.

Originally posted by Nordlys
You like it because you have good taste in music. 😉 It may have to do with the complexity of the rhythm and harmonies, or the way he uses elements of Hungarian folk music, or the instrumentation, or... well, I don't really know. My own love affair with Bartók started in childhood. As my mother is a piano teacher, we had Bartók's piano pieces for children (" ...[text shortened]... nd exactly the same, a "Seite" is a side or page, while a "Saite" is a string.

Thanks, everyone, for the recommendations. Bittorrent ho (by which I mean I plan to purchase the recommended recordings legally in a totally musician/public transport-benefiting manner)!

Noodles, I also seem to recall having to learn something simple by Bartok when I studied piano long ago, but I can't remember what, although given your description, something from "Gyermeknknek" sounds like a reasonable guess. I might be moving somewhere with a piano in the fall, in which case I'll start playing regularly again, and the aforementioned mouthful sounds like a good place to start.

As for my spelling gaffe, it explains why I didn't hear any typewriters 😉.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky

Noodles, I also seem to recall having to learn something simple by Bartok when I studied piano long ago, but I can't remember what, although given your description, something from "Gyermeknknek" sounds like a reasonable guess.

It could also have been something from the "Mikrokoszmosz" (gotta love Hungarian spelling).

Originally posted by Nordlys
"Mikrokoszmosz"

You cannot be serious.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
You cannot be serious.

I could have sworn it was spelt that way, but apparently the correct spelling is "Mikrokozmosz". 😳

Edit: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikrokozmosz 🙂