For this month's CCM, we return to Bartók, who has been featured as a classical clip several times in the past, most recently in 2013. Bartók's fantastic Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, a tour de force of great influence, is widely considered to be a landmark work in the chamber music literature. The scheme of three-movement works which are fast-slow-fast (perhaps with the first movement having a slow introduction) is an old, honored tradition; think of the symphonies of C.P.E. Bach and the early ones of Mozart and Haydn, for just a few obvious examples. It is also present in several of Bartók's works, including this one and perhaps my favorite Bartók work, Contrasts (which has yet to be a CCM, but probably will be one day).

For me, the Sf2P&P is the work primarily responsible for what I sometimes refer to as the unfortunate "Bartók effect." The piano writing and balance is really wonderful throughout the work, and this is no small feat, as effectively writing for multiple pianos is one of the more difficult compositional tasks there is. But my so-called Bartók effect has to do with the influence of the percussion writing. It is astoundingly good throughout, effective, and largely idiomatic for the instruments. Too good, as it seems every composer of works for percussion ensemble (with or, usually, without piano(s)) has tried to do what Bartók did, and not one has done it as well. So there are a plethora of percussion ensemble works which have drummers merrily and ferociously bashing away in the first movement, playing atmospheric and profound whines and shrieks in the second movement (invariably with some combination of bowed cymbals, bowed gongs or tam-tams, bowed vibraphone, several triangles, and interrupted by spasmodic explosions of snares, bongos, toms, suspended cymbals, etc., and ending with an atmospheric laissez vibrer, just as often marked "morendo" to go with the mood, an obvious attempt at writing Bartókian Night Music), followed by a last movement in which the drummers merrily and ferociously bash away. This is not to say that no one else can or could or did write well for percussion; there are plenty of great works which feature them, whether as a percussion ensemble work, or as part of a larger work. Varèse's Ionisation and the second movement of Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis spring immediately to mind.

But, I digress. The Sonata has been recorded, to varying degrees of success, many times. Bartók himself recorded it with his second wife, and the piano playing is very good, indeed. My favorite recording, for the record, is the terrific one with Gaby and Robert Casadesus. But for this month's clip I have chosen the Solti-Perahia one, with David Corkhill and Evelyn Glennie on percussion. It's a good recording, on the whole, but I chose it primarily because it has one real oddity in it which I wanted to share. In Western scores, the xylophone is almost always played one octave higher than written. Bartók seems to sometimes write it at pitch, though, including here. There is no reason I know of, however, to think that it should be played an octave lower than written. But that's what happens on this month's CCM. The result is not terrible, but for anyone who knows the piece it is very odd, and perhaps a little jarring. Solti was a first-rate musician, and this recording makes me wonder if he had some inside information about the work (perhaps a sketch or other communication) which made them decide to do it this way. I can't imagine that among the four of them it didn't at least come up in conversation. Anyway, an oddity nonetheless. Enjoy!