3rd piano concerto (Bartók)

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Béla Bartók wrote his 3rd Piano Concerto ( Sz 119) in 1945. It was his birthday present to his wife, the pianist Ditta Pásztory-Bartók . It thus forms a contrast to his first two piano concertos (1926 and 1930/1931), which he composed mainly for himself . Originally Ditta Bartók was supposed to premiere the concert in the United States in 1945 , but after Béla Bartók's death in September of that year she was unable to do so. The premiere took place on February 8, 1946 in Philadelphia under the direction of Eugene Ormandy ; The soloist was the Bartók student György Sándor .

Since the concerto was still unfinished at the time of Bartók's death, Tibor Serly added the last 17 bars based on the composer's sketches . Also, all tempo information and most of the game instructions were missing in the final. The title of the second movement, Adagio religioso , also goes back to Serly.

To the music

The concert differs stylistically from the first and the virtuoso second piano concerto . Triads and fourths as well as fourth chords dominate the work . The now and then occurring dissonances are used cautiously and an aggressiveness or sharpness of the sound is avoided. The general timbre is mild and pastoral , but at the same time fresh. Traditional music is also more closely linked than in the previous piano concertos.

  1. Allegretto - The piano introduces the first theme, played in unison and two octaves apart, against the background of an ostinato of the strings. The melody of this theme is based on the E of the Mixolydian mode . It is chromatised more densely in the following bars, but remains clearly tonal.
  2. Adagio religioso
  3. Allegro vivace

literature

  • Tadeusz A. Zieliński: Bartók. Atlantis Verlag Zurich and Freiburg i. Br., P. 381ff.

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