Philharmonia Hungarica, Werner Andreas Albert - Miklós Rózsa: Sinfonia concertante, Tripartita (2005) CD-Rip

Miklós Rósza was, quite simply, a great composer. Though his style was relatively conservative, his musical language is personal enough to be recognizable. Now, even in his works for the concert hall there is a sense of color, drama and an epic sweep often associated with film music, but that is, of course, entirely unsurprising – that his music sometimes sounds like film music is because the film music Rózsa wrote in his personal style became so influential that we have come to associate with the big, epic classics of the cinema, not the other way around.

The film connection is perhaps most recognizable (at least among the works presented here) in his 1958 Sinfonia Concertante, which really sounds like a big, epic story in which the soloists, violin and cello, are the main characters. The music is, quite simply, wonderful; the solo writing is imaginative, and it is excellently realized here by András Agoston and Lásló Fenjo. The Philharmonia Hungarica provides superb support, full of color and spirit and drama, under Werner Andreas Albert. The Notturno Ungherese, while equally stylistically characteristic, is an interesting contrast, being introspective and meditative in character – though it is equally colorfully scored – and imaginatively employing Hungarian folk music (or at least reminiscences of Hungarian folk music).

The Tripartita from 1972 is also very much rooted in Hungarian folk music. Stylistically, it is at least a bit more “modern sounding” and occasionally rather Bartokian in style, even though Rózsa’s own voice is clearly audible throughout. Though jagged and sometimes spiky, this is a rivetingly dramatic, brilliantly scored work, utterly captivating. Once again, the performances strike me as magnificent (though I haven’t heard many of the alternative), and the recording is very good though perhaps a little bit cavernous. All in all, a splendid disc, strongly recommended