Ludwig Van Beethoven Bartok:Mikrokosmos Complete

Bartók's Mikrokosmos ("Little World") essentially comprises 153 teaching pieces, divided into six books of progressive difficulty. These works make ideal vehicles for budding piano students who are ready to face the myriad challenges of 20th-century keyboard music. They also reveal the kernels of the Hungarian composer's uncompromising compositional style. György Sándor was a piano pupil of Bartók's, and his fluid, perceptive playing is unfailingly idiomatic, from the simple, canon-like exercises at the start to the demanding Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm that crown the cycle. The mono engineering is thin but acceptable. Suffice it to say that the composer would have been proud of what his pupil achieves here. --Jed Distler