Lajtha - Sym No 2 - Pasquet, Pecs SO (1995) [Philidor; FLAC]

Laszlo Lajtha was one of the most highly respected Hungarian composers of his day, a good friend of both Bartok and Kodaly; but one who fell out of favor with the Communist regime as early as 1948. His works were seldom performed in his homeland, and he was repeatedly punished by the loss of valuable commissions and posts. Lengthy protests from abroad at his being denied a visa eventually worked, and he was expecting to travel to France (where he'd initially studied composition), when he died suddenly in 1963. A prolific composer of both symphonies and string quartets, his musical style changed and became less astringent over time, though his attitude towards the government never did.

A number of questions remain unanswered about Lajtha's Second Symphony. It was clearly finished in 1938, and turned in at that time to his French publishers, but without any tempo indications. He never bothered mentioning it again to them, and it remained unperformed until the late 1980s. Some have conjectured that the composer thought its gloomy, brooding nature was unlikely to receive any performance under Horthy's increasingly brutal, Nazified rule in his native Hungary, or its Communist successor.

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