Скачать или смотреть Bartók - The first Term at the Piano

Here is my recording of Bela Bartók's educational cycle The First Term at the Piano, composed in 1913. While I don't rate this cycle as high as For Children and Mikrokosmos, there is still much to enjoy in it for beginners and more advanced pianists alike. When I started playing it, I was dismayed by Bartók's excruciatingly slow metronome markings. Really no fun either to play or to listen to. I was even more dismayed to hear than both Zoltan Kocsis and Jeno Jando (who I hugely respect, especially Kocsis) religiously stick to these markings. It made me doubt whether I wanted to do these. Then I checked out the version by good old Gyorgy Sandor, who actually worked with Bartók and knew his metronome was wonky, and was delighted to hear he totally ignores the tempi and just plays them his own way. That was a breath of fresh air, and a green light.

There seem to be different editions of this set, some containing more items (23 instead of 18) as well as different titles for individual pieces. The version I play here is from the Dover Archive Edition by Benjamin Suchoff, where it says that Bartók selected these 18 items for publication in 1929. This is also the version played by Sandor, Kocsis and Jando, so I feel I can safely ignore the 'alternative' version(s).

The piano sound selected here is that of the SK (Shigeru Kawai) Grand Piano. I hope this video can be of some use for those aspiring to play this music.

Chris Breemer, piano
https://buymeacoffee.com/cbreemer

00:12 01 - (Moderato)
00:43 02 - (Moderato)
01:19 03 - Dialogue (Moderato)
01:54 04 - Dialogue (Moderato)
02:23 05 - (Moderato)
02:43 06 - (Moderato)
03:19 07 - Folk Song (Moderato)
03:47 08 - (Andante)
04:36 09 - (Andante)
05:09 10 - Hungarian Folk Song [Erzsi Virág made her bed] (Allegro)
05:48 11 - Minuet (Andante)
06:27 12 - Swineherd's Dance (Allegro)
07:13 13 - Hungarian Folk Song [Where have you been, my lambkin?] (Andante)
07:51 14 - (Andante)
08:34 15 - Wedding Song [The cart rattles] (Moderato)
09:01 16 - Peasant's Dance (Allegro moderato)
09:22 17 - (Allegro deciso)
09:43 18 - Waltz (Tempo di valse)