Bela Bartok Plays Selections from Mikrokosmos Volume 5

When I first heard the recordings Bartok made of his own music it was clear he really meant the general instructions he gave in the introduction to his Mikrokosmos. The marked times and tempos were to be regarded as required, something that so many who play his music ignore.  Bartok was a great pianist, very clear, very subtle, perfectly balanced and, in his own works, literally definitive.  Anyone who is serious about playing his music authentically has to consult those recordings as certainly as they do the best available editions of them.   Here are selections from Volume 5 of the Mikrokosmos. 

I wish he'd recorded all of them.   Here he plays the best known pieces in the collection, the final Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm. 

So many point that could be made.   The amount of tension that comes from taking the tempos as indicated as opposed to playing them "more freely" is obvious.   I hope I get a student who gets this far soon so we can go over the recordings with the score.  I suspect I'll learn as much about these pieces I've been playing and teaching for years and years.   A while back I got some snark from people who apparently don't realize that classical musicians who are worth anything don't play things identically over and over for decades, that if they're worth anything they learn every time they play a piece and that is reflected in their playing.  At least that's what any classical musician worth listening to aspires to.