Bartok - Divertimento / Wolf - Italian Serenade / Dvorak ” Serenade for Strings

Seiji Ozawa returns to conduct the festival orchestra he co-founded in memory of his teacher at Tokyo's Toho School of Music.

Following their previous recordings on Philips of Beethoven, Schubert and Poulenc, the orchestra, selected from among Japan's finest players, here explore works by two composers strongly influenced by their love of the folk music of their homelands. Bartók's Divertimento, with its high-spirited Finale, is as Hungarian as Dvorák's Serenade for Strings is Czech.

The programme is completed by a rare recording of Austrian Hugo Wolf's own arrangement, for string orchestra, of his highly original Italian Serenade, originally written for string quartet.