SKU: HL.48024583

ISBN 9781784545048. UPC: 888680922290. 12.0x15.5x0.821 inches.

Bela Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, composed in summer 1937 on a commission from Paul Sacher and premiered in Basel in January 1938, is incontestably one of the supreme creations of modern music. This publication, with introductory essays by Felix Meyer, Robert W. Wason, Laszlo Vikarius, and Wolfgang Rathert, presents two major handwritten sources for this work from the holdings of the Paul Sacher Foundation: the draft score, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the sonata's genesis, and a whiteprint of the fair copy, which contains additions from Bartok and differs substantially from the definitive version at the end of the development section in movement 1. The volume also contains, on an enclosed CD, the radio recording of 1940, with Bartok and his wife Ditta Pasztory on the piano parts, as well as a new recording of the sonata in its original form, played by the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo with percussionists Matthias Wursch and Christian Dierstein. In writing and sound, the volume leads readers to a closer acquaintance with Bartok's masterpiece and invites them to deepen their understanding of his compositional method, his revisions of the musical text, and his pianistic artistry.