--- In belabartokclub@yahoogroups.com, rugby52732 <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> --- In belabartokclub@yahoogroups.com, andybak <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> > I am a bit late to this discussion but I have always heard a small
> > touch of Bartok in Martinu. Mainly the rhythmic drive and 'bite'.
> Try
> > the later symphonies...
> >
> > Oddly enough John Adam's Violin Concerto somehow reminds me of
> > Bartok's although I doubt anyone else would agree with me there...

> I quite agree on the Adams.One is in the prescence of totally
> original writing in both cases.The Bartok 2nd and the Adams are musts
> in any collection,certainly a lover of violin concerti,as is of
> course the Bartok Viola Concerto.
>
> Martinu is to my ear much more limited than Bartok.Rudolf Firkusny
> has a single cd of Martinu piano music if one is looking for an
> introduction.I do prefer Janacek.
>
>

The only Janacek I know is the Glagolthic Mass which sounds unlike
anything else I have heard. I know the Sinfonietta a little. Is there
anything else I should hear?

I would start with Martinu's orchestral stuff. You can't knock the 6th
Symphony surely...?
I agree Martinu isn't in the same league as Bartok but I am starved of
good stuff in that style so I take what I can get! (My taste in
classical music is pretty narrow. I can't cope anything that much more
modernist or less modernist than Bartok... I probably stretch from
Sibelius on the romantic/classical side to later-Stravinsky on the
Modernist end of the spectrum leaving me not much middle ground to
play with...)

I am trying to think who else would I listen to when I wanted a
Bartokian kind of kick... Sometimes Hindemith is worth a go (Concert
Music for Strings and Brass)... Try Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto
(3rd Movement)... Barber's Symphony No. 1 will be surprising if you
only know the Adagio. (Listening to Michael Tippett Symphony No. 1 at
the moment... Sigh. I'm going off the point now aren't I? ;-)