From the first tranquil notes of the oboes, on through all the simple, light-hearted melodies of the Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra, the music was ingratiating, undemandingand, somehow, startling. The audience kept turning to its program notes for reassurance that this really was a composition by Bela Bartok.
Only now and then, as Pianist Louis Kentner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed the Scherzo's British premiere last week, could Bartok fans find hints of the more familiar dissonances and pounding rhythms of the composer's later career. This was vintage stuff, dating back to Bartok's early romantic period. And after a long...
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