Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox musical composition The Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement orchestral work composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular, and most accessible works.<ref name="Cooper">Template:Cite book</ref>

The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943". It was premiered on December 1, 1944, at Symphony Hall, Boston, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. It was a great success and has been regularly performed since.<ref name="Cooper" /> Bartók revised the piece in February 1945.

It is perhaps the best-known of a number of pieces that have the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra. This is in contrast to the conventional concerto form, which features a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment. Bartók said he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way.<ref name="notes">Bartók, Béla. "Explanation to Concerto for Orchestra," for the Boston premiere at Symphony Hall.Template:Full citation needed</ref>

Composition

The work was written in response to a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation (run by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky) after Bartók moved to the United States from his native Hungary, which he had fled because of World War II. It has been speculated that Bartók's previous work, the String Quartet No. 6 (1939), could well have been his last were it not for this commission, which also sparked a few other compositions, including his Sonata for Solo Violin and Piano Concerto No. 3.<ref name="Cooper"/>

In 1943, while Bartok was in hospital suffering from what would later be discovered to be leukemia, he was visited by Koussevitzky, who wanted to inform him of the commission for him to write the work that became this concerto.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Instrumentation

The piece is scored for the following instrumentation.<ref name="score">Template:Cite book</ref>

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Woodwinds
Template:Hanging indent
Template:Hanging indent
Template:Hanging indent
Template:Hanging indent

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Brass
4 horns
3 trumpets
3 trombones
1 tuba

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Percussion
timpani
side drum
bass drum
cymbals
triangle
tam-tam

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Strings
2 harps
violins I, II
violas
cellos
double basses

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Musical analysis

The piece is in five movements: Template:Ordered list

Bartók makes extensive use of classical elements in the work;<ref name="Cooper"/> for instance, the first and fifth movements are in sonata-allegro form.

The work combines elements of Western art music and eastern European folk music, especially that of Hungary, and departs from standard tonality, often using non-traditional modes and artificial scales.<ref name="Cooper" /> Bartók researched folk melodies, and their influence is felt throughout the work. For example, the second main theme of the first movement, as played by the first oboe, resembles a folk melody, with its narrow range and almost haphazard rhythm. The drone in the horns and strings also indicates folk influence.<ref name="Cooper" />

File:Bartok-ThemeB.PNG
The second theme of the first movement (measure 155). The harp is not shown.

I. Introduzione

The first movement, Introduzione, consists of a slow introduction, presenting the main material (consecutive intervals of fourths, scale fragments, mirror ideas, etc.) leading to an allegro with numerous fugato passages. The quick part is in sonata-allegro form.<ref name="notes"/>

II. Presentando le coppie

The second movement is called "Game of Pairs" (but see note below). Its main part has five sections, each thematically distinct from the others, with a different pair of instruments playing together in each.<ref name="notes"/> In each passage, a different interval separates the pair—bassoons are a minor sixth apart, oboes are in minor thirds, clarinets in minor sevenths, flutes in fifths, and muted trumpets in major seconds.<ref name="score"/> The movement prominently features a side drum that taps out a rhythm at the beginning and end of this part. In fact this main part is played twice. Careful listening will reveal some small differences when it is played the second time. In between the first and second playing of this part is a short interlude that to some listeners (including some who wrote cover notes for recordings of this work) suggests a kind of marriage ceremony. So one can imagine that, when the main part is played a second time, the five couples that appeared earlier are now married.

The published score titles the movement "Giuoco delle coppie" or "Game of the couples", but Bartók's manuscript had no title for this movement at the time the engraving-copy blueprint was made. At some later date, Bartók added the words "Presentando le coppie" or "Presentation of the couples" to the manuscript and the addition of this title was included in the list of corrections to be made to the score. In Bartók's file blueprint the final title is found, and because it is believed to have been the composer's later thought, it is retained in the revised edition of the score.<ref>Peter Bartók, "Preface to the Revised Edition, 1993", in Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra: Full Score, revised edition, [iii–v] (London, New York, Bonn, Sydney, Tokyo: Boosey & Hawkes, 1993). The citation is on p. iv.</ref>

The original 1946 printed score also had an incorrect metronome marking for this movement. This was brought to light by Sir Georg Solti as he was preparing to record the piece with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1980: Template:Blockquote

Despite Solti's assertion that thousands of earlier performances had been played at the wrong speed, both of Fritz Reiner's recordings—his 1946 recording with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (the first recording of the work) and his 1955 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (the same orchestra whose side drum player called the matter to Solti's attention)—use the tempo (crotchet equals 94) Solti later recommended. Reiner had known Bartók since 1905, when they were fellow students at the Budapest Academy. In 1943, it was Reiner, along with Joseph Szigeti, who persuaded Koussevitsky to commission the Concerto for Orchestra.<ref>Morgan, Kenneth (2005). Fritz Reiner, Maestro and Martinet, p. 120. University of Illinois Press, Champaign. Template:ISBN.</ref>

III. Elegia

The third movement, "Elegia", is another slow movement, typical of Bartók's so-called "Night music". It revolves around three themes derived primarily from the first movement.<ref name="notes" />

IV. Intermezzo interrotto

The fourth movement, "Intermezzo interrotto" (literally "interrupted intermezzo"), consists of a flowing melody with changing time signatures, intermixed with a theme that quotes the song "Da geh' ich zu Maxim" from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which had recently also been referenced in the "invasion" theme of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Mostel, Raphael. "The Merry Widow's Fling With Hitler", TabletMag.com, 30 December 2014, accessed 11 November 2016</ref> Whether Bartók was parodying Lehár, Shostakovich, or both has been hotly disputed, without conclusive evidence either way. The theme is itself interrupted by glissandi on the trombones and woodwinds.

<score sound="1">

\new Staff \with { 

 instrumentName = "Cl. I "

} \relative c { 

 \transpose bes c'
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"clarinet"
 \key c \major
 \time 2/2
 \tempo 2 = 94
 \partial4 g4( f) e( d) c( bes-.) bes-. r4 \tuplet 3/2 { f'8( g f } e4) d( c) bes( a-.) a-.
 r4 \tuplet 3/2 { e'8( f e } d4) c( bes) \tuplet 3/2 { a8( bes a } g4-.) g-.
 r4 \tuplet 3/2 { d'8( e d } \tuplet 3/2 { [c8 d c] } \tuplet 3/2 { bes c bes } 
 \tuplet 3/2 { [a bes a] }   \tuplet 3/2 { g a g } f4-.) f-.\stopTextSpan r2

} </score>

Template:ListenIn this movement, the timpani are featured when the second theme is introduced, requiring 10 different pitches of the timpani over the course of 20 seconds. The general structure is "ABA–interruption–BA."<ref name="notes" />

V. Finale

The fifth movement, marked presto, consists of a whirling perpetuum mobile main theme competing with fugato fireworks and folk melodies. It is in sonata-allegro form.<ref name="notes" />

Recordings

The following are only a small selection of the numerous available recordings.

Piano reduction

In 1985, Bartók's son Peter Bartók discovered a manuscript of a piano reduction of the score in the large body of material left to him upon his father's death. This version had been prepared for rehearsals of a ballet interpretation of the Concerto, to be performed by the Ballet Theatre in New York. This performance never took place, and the piano score was shelved. Soon after the discovery of this manuscript, Peter Bartók asked the Hungarian pianist György Sándor to prepare the manuscript for publication and performance. The world premiere recording of this edited reduction was made by Sándor in 1987, on CBS Masterworks: the CD also includes piano versions of the Dance Suite, Sz. 77 and Petite Suite, Sz. 105, which was adapted from some of the 44 Violin Duos.<ref>György Sándor, Liner notes to the cited recording (MK 44526)</ref>

References

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Further reading

  • Fosler-Lussier, Danielle (2000). "Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra in Postwar Hungary: A Road Not Taken." International Journal of Musicology, vol. 9, pp. 363–383.
  • French, Gilbert G. (1967). "Continuity and Discontinuity in Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra." The Music Review, vol. 28, pp. 122–134.
  • Móricz, Klára (1993-1994). "New Aspects of the Genesis of Béla Bartók's 'Concerto for Orchestra': Concepts of 'Finality' and 'Intention.'" Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 35, Fasc. 1/3, pp. 181–219.
  • Parker, Beverly Lewis (1989). "Parallels between Bartók's 'Concerto for Orchestra' and Kübler-Ross's Theory about the Dying." The Musical Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 532–556.
  • Suchoff, Benjamin (2000). "Background and Sources of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra." International Journal of Musicology, vol. 9, pp. 339–361.

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