These classic performances were probably the first recordings of the Bart Piano Concertos that many of us owned, and they probably put the music on the international map once and for all. Both Ferenc Fricsay and G騷a Anda, compatriots of the composer, spared no effort in bringing this music to the widest possible public; and their recordings are not only important for this reason, but they have also withstood the test of time very well indeed. They treat these pieces as straightforward, Romantic piano concertos of the Lisztian "bravura" school, which in many respects they are. Later performances have explored the music's modernity more probingly, but that lessens neither the validity of this approach nor the pleasure of the result. --David Hurwitz