Valentina Tóth
Hungarian Horizon
- Type CD
- Label Challenge Classics
- UPC 0608917252224
- Catalog number CC 72522
- Release date 22 March 2013
About the album
“Music is a language everyone understands. When you communicate through music, there are no misunderstandings, there is no confusion.” That could be the artistic motto of Valentina Tóth (1994) – a young and highly promising pianist, a multi-talent who sings, dances, acts and plays the piano at an exceptionally high level. In 2009 she won first prize in the Princess Christina Piano Competition and her career has been on the up and up ever since. Skyrocketing. She is currently studying at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, but already she has been on the stage at Carnegie Hall, and April 2013 Challenge Classics released her first album.
Valentina's grandfather immigrated from Hungary to the Netherlands. At young age Valentina discovered within herself a deep connection with both old Hungarian folksongs and music of Hungarian composers. The deep emotions in this music inspired her to play the works of two great Hungarian composers for this album, Bartók and Kodály. It challenges her to make the different voices and colors of an orchestra sound through the piano and to express great and tiny feelings in this classical 20th century Hungarian music. It’s a beautiful combination of piano music, partly inspired by the old Hungarian folk tradition.
The Bagatelles, Op. 6, written in 1908, are an important link in the work of Bartók. In them it first become clear how hard the composer was working to find his own super-personalised musical language. The work dates from the time when Bartók seriously started to collect and document Hungarian folk music. Bartók was able to take something that had been around ages (Hungarian folk music) and make something entirely new out of it.
Tóth combines the Bagatelles and the Three Folk Songs from Csík (now Ciuc in Romania) by Bartók with the Seven Piano Pieces, Op. 11, and the Dances of Marosszék by Kodály. Kodály based the latter work on melodies and dances he had collected in the Marosszék region in Transsylvania, Romania. He originally wrote this fairy-tale-like music – nowadays seldom heard in the concert hall – for piano, and later adapted it for orchestra.
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1114 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Molto sostenuto
01:28 -
1214 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Allegro giocoso
00:51 -
1314 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Andante
00:47 -
1414 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Grave
01:36 -
1514 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Vivo
01:09 -
1614 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Lento
01:26 -
1714 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Allegretto molto capriccioso
02:11 -
1814 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Andante sostenuto
01:50 -
1914 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Allegretto grazioso
01:51 -
11014 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Allegro
02:30 -
11114 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Allegretto molto rubato
01:45 -
11214 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Rubato
03:48 -
11314 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 ‘Elle est morte’: Lento funebre
02:09 -
11414 Bagatelles (Tizennégy bagatell zongorára), Sz.38 op. 6 Valse ‘Ma mie qui danse’: Presto
02:11 -
115Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Lento
01:36 -
116Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Székely Lament (Székely keserves): Rubato, parlando
02:01 -
117Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 ‘
01:21 -
118Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Epitaph (Sírfelirat): Rubato
06:21 -
119Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Tranquillo
01:57 -
120Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Székely Tune (Székely nóta): Poco rubato
03:34 -
121Seven piano pieces (Hét zongoradarab) op. 11 Rubato
06:20 -
122Dances of Marosszék (Marosszéki táncok)
12:12 -
1233 Hungarian Folksongs from Csík (Három csíkmegyei népdal), Sz.35a Rubato
01:29 -
1243 Hungarian Folksongs from Csík (Három csíkmegyei népdal), Sz.35a L’istesso tempo
01:00 -
1253 Hungarian Folksongs from Csík (Három csíkmegyei népdal), Sz.35a Poco vivo
01:02
Lilian Peters