Album: Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Dennis Russell DaviesLutoslawski/Bartók: Musique, Funèbre (ECM New Series)

Bringing together three Bartók suites with the funeral music composed in his memory by his admirer Witold Lutoslawski, Dennis Russell Davies here offers convincing confirmation of the former's influence on the latter.

The “Romanian Folk Dances” are by turns impishly ebullient and wistfully nostalgic, while it's possible to discern, especially in the Adagio section of the “Divertimento”, the blend of dark calm and bleak passion echoed in Lutoslawski's “Musique Funèbre”, which tacks between wintry orchestral tritones and stalking solo bass. With its shrillness and dissonances, it's clearly an impassioned lament, rather than an elegy.

Download: Musique Funèbre; Divertimento; Romanian Folk Dances