Thomas Dausgaard leads the Haydn Orchestra in a programme straight from the prairies of Central Europe. Bartók's Suite is an extensive orchestral work, steeped in Hungarian folk music. Bartók spent his entire life crafting a style that reflected the true folk music of his land, which he studied passionately by travelling from village to village to record village music in its purest forms. His goal was to explode popular music in all its revolutionary simplicity, but already in Dvořák, popular music stands as the protagonist, subdued in classical forms and in a fully romantic language, but fully outlined. In the Eighth Symphony the Bohemian composer achieves a serenity and clarity in sharp contrast to the stormy Seventh. This serenity, perhaps influenced by the tranquility of his residence in the middle of the Czech countryside in which the Symphony was written, allowed him to give space as never before to the music of his land, in a Symphony that is like a return home after a long journey.
