Catching up on music, part 2

I don't know anything about Béla Bartók beside the fact that he is highly thought of. Also, that I didn't like his music when we heard some of it in Budapest a few years ago.

A few weeks ago, however, I got a shot at some half-price tickets for a performance of his music (and a Schubert symphony) by the Budapest Festival Orchestra with the astonishing pianist Andras Schiff so I thought I'd give Mr. Bartók another chance. If anybody can do his music justice, I would think his countrymen are the ones to do it. Besides, what did I have to lose? Even if it turned out I disliked his music, I'd get to hear Schubert's 9th (which is called "The Great C-Major" to distinguish from his other, much shorter, C-Major symphony, but which deserves to be called great also because it is, um, er, ah, . . . great!)

The upshot?

• Bartók's peasant songs were as bad as I remembered.
• I was able to enjoy Bartók's piano concerto somewhat by marveling at Schiff's brilliance and imagining the music as accompaniment to a Kandinsky painting.
• And Schubert's great Great C-Major? Terrible. It dragged on and on and on, and the orchestra presented it with the bounciness of an oompah band; all that was missing was the tuba.