Erzsébet Tusa plays Bartók Out of Doors Sz.81 (1/2)

Bartók:Out of Doors Sz. 81

Volume 1

I. With drums and pipes. Pesante
II. Barcarolla. Andante
III. Musettes. Moderato

Erzsébet Tusa, piano

Erzsébet Tusa was born in Budapest in 1928. After having studied under professor Pál Kadosa at the piano department of the Budapest Liszt Academy of Music, she graduated with distinction in 1948. In the same year, she won third prize in the Geneva International Piano Concours. Soon thereafter she established herself as a coveted pianist in Hungarys concert halls and gained renown in many foreign countries as well.
Although her repertory ranges from Bach to contemporary composers, Mrs. Tusa has a special penchant for Liszt, Debussy and Bartók, whose works she has committed to gramophone records. As she has set herself the task of propagating the late, unknown works of Liszt, she frequently plays them at many of her recitals and has written a series of articles about them for a prestigious Hungarian musical journal. She made a widely acclaimed LP featuring some piano works of Debussy, (Images, Vols. 1-2., Estampes, LIsle Joyeuse), resulting in her being invited to serve as a jury member in the 1978 International Debussy Piano Concours staged at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Mrs. de Tignan, the stepdaughter and the last living relative of Debussy, sent Mrs. Tusa a letter which reads, among others: „I am glad that your country possesses such a fine ambassadress of my stepfathers compositions as you are.
Mrs. Tusa is an outstanding performer of Bartóks piano works, and in 1961 she world-premièred his Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra. „Erzsébet Tusa is a splendid pianist: she interprets the compositions of Béla Bartók, my husband, marvellously, wrote Mrs. Bartók, Ditta Pásztory, the excellent pianist after a concert at which she combined with Mrs. Tusa in rendering Bartóks Sonata for Two Pianos. Since her husbands death, Ditta Pásztory has been playing this work exclusively with Mrs. Tusa. They also partnered in committing to the gramophone record his Concerto for Two Pianos, and concerted together in Bologna, Geneva, Lugano, Recklinghausen and Salzburg.
Mrs. Tusa has extensively guest-performed in Austria, (Salzburg, Vienna), Bulgaria, the F.R.G., (Bremerhaven, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Recklinghausen, Paderborn, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Hesischer Rundfunk, Hitzacker Festival), the G.D.R., France (Paris, Radio France) Italy, (Bologna, Parma, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Rome), Switzerland, (Radio Lugano, Radio Basel, Geneva), Poland and Yugoslavia.
Besides her activities as a concert pianist, Mrs. Tusa is engaged in teaching too. She is a professor at the piano department of the Budapest Liszt Academy of Music and was invited to hold masterclasses at Alkmaar, Holland, in 1980.
In appreciation for her fine artistry and for her outstanding merits in spreading Hungarian musical culture both at home and abroad Mrs. Tusa was awarded the Liszt Award in 1968, became a Merited Artist in 1979 and awarded the Bartók-Pásztory Award.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• classical
• piano
• bartók
• szabadban
• out
• of
• doors
• erzsébet
• tusa

[Starbirdy9999]

Do any of you know the inspiration for this piece? "Out of Doors"; what did Bartok mean by that?

[nikolaimedtner]

@Starbirdy9999 "Out of Doors" (in hungarian: "Szabadban") could be translated also as "Out in the nature, Outside", and i think he had different inspirations mixed together, as the nature itself and it's different sounds, as you can hear in the "Night music". The melodies were inspired, as mostly in Bartók's music, by hungarian folk songs, and the Suite-like composition by french baroque music, especially Couperin, who's works he edited and published before.

[MarcheseCadmio88]

You'd never guess that such a graceful woman could play such a brutal movement like the 1st (and I LOVE Bartok's brutality!!)

[soami2u]

I'm surprised I have not heard of this pianist before. This is superb! I have very rarely heard Bartok played like this--a riveting performance!

[WatchBlueSkies]

very fine

[joshclarksjb7389]

Im playing this in a concert next wednesday. Lovely to hear this interpretation to give me some food for thought

[Noshirm]

Very impressive playing from this gifted pupil of Kadosa. Many thanks for this post.