In the years since the acclaimed recordings made by the
Hungarian pianist Zoltán Kocsis back in the 1980s and 90s,
no single pianist has attempted to record a complete edition
of Bartók’s works for solo piano! For a quarter of a century,
no new comprehensive perspective on this multifaceted
oeuvre has been cast, an important and varied, yet internally
cohesive body of work that displays so many different aspects
of Bartók’s creativity. This is exactly what the German pianist
Andreas Bach has set out to achieve - "... to find the young
Bartók in the late works as well as the late Bartók in the early
works. And (...) create a recording that presents a Bartók
different from those usually encountered and which are by
contrast, ‘middle-of-the-road’. Emphasizing “not only the
rhythmic and folkloric content, but also providing an
opportunity to discover Bartók‘s harmonic thinking”, an aspect
of the composer’s language that few fans had the opportunity
to appreciate before.

Volume1 of this new complete edition presents individual
works that Bartók composed in his mature, personal style,
including the Sonata, the Sonatina, the Suite op. 14, and the
14 Bagatelles; folk music influences are present but only as
distant references. The next 4 CDs will focus on the
"Romantic Bartók” and will include his early works,
compositions written early in his career and still showing
influences of 19th century Romantic idiom. CD 5 "Bartók and
Folk Music" is dedicated to his works, and arrangements most
directly influenced by folk music. The remaining CDs (Vols.
6-8) are devoted to the major cycles "For Children" and
"Mikrokosmos ".