Absolutely essential, gorgeous playing, for all Bartok fans.

From the liner notes you Must read at www.arbiterrecords.com:

"To have heard her play was one of life's wonders.Her Bartok
revealed an interpretation attuned to the composer's own, far
beyond the self-aggrandizing pupils who claim for themselves
the mantle of his tradition while contorting his music into a
caricature of Prokofieff. Here dwelled the breath, the shape of his
world, its elegance, an authentic projection of his rhythmic style
and proportion,possibly surpassing his own recording of the
Suite's fourth movement : one work from Mikrokosmos attained
unimagined depths ( Minor Seconds and Major Sevenths).
Marik's Kodaly also reveals familiarity with the Transylvanian folk
idioms presented."

There is also a recent Marik # 2 at Arbiter, with notes.

My review, FYI:

Arbiter's first Marik cd not only re-discovers an artist the calibre of
Tiegerman, Feinberg, and Valmalete, but, ipso facto, one of the
great pianists of the 20th century.

The natural quality of her playing and golden tone remind
immediately of Gieseking, Moiseiwitsch and Rubinstein; her
sensitivity, projection, and humanity of Fiorentino; her Liszt
playing surely of the composer himself.

Her difficult life remarkably generates a bitter-free spirit that
kindles great warmth in all she plays, Benediction de Dieu dans
le solitude truly a blessing upon the listner, the Liszt Berceuse
pure magic, the rare first version of the Vallee d'Obermann ( not
played by Horowitz at his 1966 Carnegie recital or Berman in his
complete L'Annes for DDG) not only more interesting than the
usual, but Marik proceeds to upstage the other two. These Liszt
readings are surely some of the most distinguished Liszt
playing ever. Her Liszt sound is so compelling, many-hued ,
bell-ringing higher registers, with an organ-like sonority in the
bass,great technique, convincing rhetoric and vision.

In Kodaly's Dances from Marossszek , she is able to draw
parallels to Liszt's music, in compelling,emotional readings.

Bartok in her hands takes on Debussian qualities,the
Mikrokosmos selections reminding of the Frenchman's
Preludes,further emphasized by several sensitively played
selections from Debussy's Images and Preludes, and Ravel's
Miroirs.

The Beethoven Op.109 Sonata again exudes warmth, color,
equanimity, and an improvistory spirit, yet care to detail,
reminding again how timeless, and contemporary, this music
can be in the right hands, a worthy companion reading to my
Schnabel,Ashkenazy,Uchida,Fiorentino,Richter of the same.

From the liner notes,by her friend, the Canadian author Evelyn
Eaton:

"One summer in New Hampshire, in the studio...on the edge of
woods overlooking a hillside and a pool, there had been three
years of desolate silence.All the birds were gone,after an orgy of
misdirected spraying.Iren came there ' on vacation', to
practice,her usual five hours a day, more often seven, since she
was free of teaching.The Beethoven Sonatas, Liszt's
Benediction, his Saint Francis and the Birds,Debussy,Ravel,
Bartok could be heard two miles away.Presently the woods filled
with birds, madly answering.They sang so loud for certain
pieces that she could hardly hear herself play. Nature
responds,how gratefully,to beauty,to truth. Humans
answer,too.Poets write poems,painters paint,dancers
dance,gardeners garden, with renewed zest.Notes and letters
and flowers and wine arrive.Iren responds. She gives
parties.People look forward to her parties,avidly.They come to
her home for comfort and never leave forlorn..."

With these cd's , two for modest $17, you too will receive much
comfort. Highly reccomended.