Buriedtreasure

Conductor Gergely Madaras introduces three rarities from his own collection

Bartók Album Muzsikás Muzsikás MU 001

Bartók was the first person who really took the time to go to villages and discover hidden treasures. There were different melodies in practically every village and he filled thousands of phonograph rolls with recordings. On this album there are some of those original recordings, his duo responses to the melodies, and then the same duos played by Muzsikás. So there are three different layers of musical transformation.

Giuliani Gran Duo Concertant Noemi Gyori (f lute) and Katalin Koltai (guitar) Genuin GEN19640

Mauro Giuliani seems to be a hidden treasure for most of us, but in the flute and guitar repertoire he’s the mainstream. From Italy, he went to Vienna where he met Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven – this disc also features transcriptions for flute and guitar of each of their piano sonatas. It beautifully suggests that their music could have been so easily played on these instruments and that the flute and guitar can compete with the piano and the violin when playing mainstream repertoire.

Christian Mason Unseen Light Bamberg Symphony et al Col Legno WWE1CD40415

This recording shows how much composer Christian Mason evolved in the first couple of years of his career. What I admire in his music is that he’s always searching for something expressive and something very personal. He’s a very honest composer – someone who researches the culture or distinctive colour that he is looking for. His music is always unique, and his attitude is similar to what Bartók was all about: not just creating nice colours but all the time trying to go deeper.

Gergely Madaras takes part in the

Halle’s ‘Beyond the Score’ series at the Bridgewater Hall on 11, 12 & 15 March