CD: Bartok: Music for Strings etc, Chamber Orchestra of Europe/ Harnoncourt

Even though his repertoire seems to expand exponentially every year, Bartok still seems unlikely territory for Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and for much of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, his approach seems disturbingly out of kilter. The weighty, deliberate way in which he lays out the opening fugue seems an attempt to give the movement symphonic stature, but when the scherzo second movement also fails to get out of the starting blocks, the lethargy becomes a more serious shortcoming.

The string-orchestra Divertimento, though, is far more convincing, properly energised and winningly idiomatic. It's as if the folk-derived material in that work provides Harnoncourt with the starting point he needs, while the much more austere modernism of the Music for Strings finds him at a loss.