Kodály - Concerto for Orchestra, etc

The Guardian 60

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra/Falletta
(Naxos)

Zoltán Kodály’s music has tended to be eclipsed both by his work as an educator and by the edgier, more experimental output of Bartók, his friend and colleague. The two composers both wrote pieces infused with Hungarian folk song – which they sometimes travelled together to remote regions to record – but where Bartók is spiky, Kodály’s orchestral works have more of a lush, romantic sensibility, captured solidly here by the Buffalo Philharmonic and its longstanding music director, JoAnn Falletta. In Dances of Galánta and Dances of Marosszék the rhythms are taut and snappy, even if the former doesn’t stomp to its close in quite the frenzy it might. The single-movement Concerto for Orchestra, written four years before Bartók’s, showcases some colourful, richly woven playing, and Falletta’s pacing sustains momentum throughout the Variations on The Peacock, a tiny folk song that inspired a big, big work.