Inspirations: Mahler and Bartók

Cosmic and combustive, Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion hurtles through infectious rhythms and leaping melodies via the sparse, eerie, mystical sonorities of what Bartók termed his ‘night music’. Further into darkness, Mahler’s Sixth, ‘Tragic’ Symphony builds to the famous hammer strokes or inexorable blows of fate which Mahler felt like the ‘stroke of an axe’.