Bartok: Piano Works Alain Planès

• Bela Bartók (1881-1945): Dance Suite Sz 77
• 1I. Moderato03:53
• 2II. Allegro molto02:20
• 3III. Allegro vivace03:02
• 4IV. Molto tranquillo03:19
• 5V. Comodo01:09
• 6VI. Finale. Allegro04:17
• Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs Sz 71
• 7Four Old Songs, I. Rubato04:26
• 8Four Old Songs, II. Andante00:49
• 9Four Old Songs, III. Poco rubato02:17
• 10Four Old Songs, IV. Andante05:44
• Piano Sonata Sz 80
• 11I. Allegro moderato04:46
• 12II. Sostenuto e pesante05:44
• 13III. Allegro molto03:59
• Six Romanian Folk Dances Sz 56
• 141. Stick Dance01:17
• 152. Sash Dance00:32
• 163. In One Spot00:55
• 174. Dance from Bucsum00:46
• 185. Romanian Polka00:32
• 196. Fast Dance00:55
• Fourteen Bagatelles op.6 Sz 38
• 20I. Molto sostenuto01:45
• 21II. Allegro giocoso00:48
• 22III. Andante01:05
• 23IV. Grave00:58
• 24V. Vivo01:08
• 25VI. Lento01:51
• 26VII. Allegretto molto capriccioso02:05
• 27VIII. Andante sostenuto02:41
• 28IX. Allegretto grazioso02:31
• 29X. Allegro02:31
• 30XI. Allegretto molto rubato02:17
• 31XII. Rubato03:34
• 32XIII. Lento funebre02:23
• 33XIV. Valse02:18
• Total Runtime01:18:37

Info for Bartok: Piano Works

It was in these terms that Ferruccio Busoni greeted the publication in 1908 of the 14 Bagatelles, in which Béla Bartók conveyed the violent aesthetic impact of his discovery of authentic Hungarian peasant music. Over the next 20 years, up to the magisterial Sonata of 1926, he indefatigably refined an innovative pianistic language: pungent, dissonant, percussive, with multiple new playing techniques, that was to influence the entire 20th century. A master of every style, from Haydn to Boulez by way of Chopin and Chabrier, Alain Planès stands revealed here as a Bartókian of the front rank.

Alain Planès, piano

Alain Planès
A great lover and connoisseur of painting, no less learned in his passion for poetry, Alain Planès enjoys a career in his own image: right from the start he has followed the path of life rather than the siren songs of a glory that demands too many compromises. There is in him something of a curious blend of Proust and Wilde.

With the first he shares his relationship with time, profound, expanded, Schubertian. With the second, a certain intellectual dandyism, a form of refined cynicism that nonetheless does not sacrifice tenderness.

From a mother with an artistic temperament, a painter and music-lover, he has inherited and retained fervent humility and disinterestedness of gesture. In the end it is this that creates style – rigour is of little use without grace.

This multi-faceted sensibility discovered the piano at five, first played with orchestra three years later, and set off for the United States after the Paris Conservatoire in search of another way of making music: with Pressler, Sebök, Primrose and Starker, whose regular concert partner Alain Planès long remained in the USA and Europe.

Soloist, chambrist, accompanist, teacher – every aspect of his art arouses his interest. Moreover, he had the opportunity of discovering the entire classical and contemporary repertoire by playing it through on two pianos with François Michel, a friend of Stravinsky’s, in whose home Michel had mingled with the great intellectual figures of the time such as Malraux, Deleuze, Cassandre, and later Miró.

When he returned to France a few years later it was to become, at the request of Pierre Boulez, solo pianist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, where he remained until 1981. His in-depth work with such eminent composers as Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti and Berio set the final seal on the eclecticism of his playing, and prompted the foremost music festivals to seek out his presence. These include La Roque-d’Anthéron, Montreux, Aix-en-Provence, and the prestigious Marlboro Festival where he has appeared for many years now, faithful to his exceptionally close association with Rudolf Serkin.

Booklet for Bartok: Piano Works