<<  -- 3 --  Robert Anderson    POWERFUL AND PLAYFUL

Bartók himself characterised the hellfire lick of the scampering strings in the finale as a perpetuum mobile. Reiner drives hard, and the result is as vivid as if the recording had been made yesterday rather than all but a half-century ago [listen -- track 5, 0:42-1:38]. As the work nears its end, Bartók piles on the dissonances so that an astringent Pelion has to balance on a very unstable Ossa.

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