Twentieth-Century Masterpieces: Bartok. Stravinsky

Concertgebouworkest

Eduard van Beinum

The recorded legacy of Eduard van Beinum has been extensively documented on Eloquence. Previous issues have revealed the Dutch conductor's mastery of and sympathy for 20th-century composers such as Sibelius (4429487) and Britten (4802337). His clear-headed approach to any score, combined with the refinement of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, particularly suit the music of Bartók and Stravinsky represented here. At the same time, Van Beinum was renowned for a fastidious ear in the matter of orchestral colour - he could draw out a full palette of sonority in works such as the Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz (also on Eloquence, 4825569) and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade (4825511), a palette which is further tinted and enhanced by the twanging cimbalom in the uproarious suite from Kodály's Háry János to conclude this album.