MÁV Symphony Orchestra, Gábor Takács-Nagy - Farkas: Orchestral Music, Vol. 6 (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. The Sly Students Suite: I. Fair in Debrecen
02. The Sly Students Suite: II. Air de danse
03. The Sly Students Suite: III. Students' Dance
04. The Sly Students Suite: IV. Gypsy Music
05. The Sly Students Suite: V. Pas de deux
06. The Sly Students Suite: VI. Finale
07. Symphony: I. Overture
08. Symphony: II. Elegia
09. Symphony: III. Scherzo
10. Symphony: IV. Finale
12. Preludio e fuga: II. Fuga

Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) is often viewed as a gifted miniaturist, sifting through Baroque and popular Hungarian sources to produce glittering orchestral dances of infectious energy. That Farkas does indeed exist, as in the suite from the ballet The Sly Students, but this album also shows an entirely different side to his musical personality. His Preludio e Fuga finds him experimenting with dodecaphony – but he offered a caution: ‘In the twelve-tone theme of the fugue, I did not use Schoenberg’s orthodox model but a softer form, more euphoric, with a rounder and more attractive sonority – I am thinking of works by Luigi Dallapiccola or […] Frank Martin’. His only symphony was a victim of Communist orthodoxy, so severely criticised at Party meetings that Farkas shelved the score. This first complete recording reveals a work that is both big-boned and big-hearted – one of the finest of all Hungarian symphonies.

MÁV Symphony Orchestra
Gábor Takács-Nagy, conductor

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