Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)

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The Concerto for Orchestra ( Sz 116) is one of the most famous pieces by Béla Bartók and is also one of his most popular and most accessible compositions.

Bartók's work is probably the best known of a series of pieces with the initially contradicting title Concerto for Orchestra . Bartók, by his own admission, called the piece a concert and not a symphony because the individual instruments are treated more solo and virtuoso.

occupation

Late Romantic Symphony Orchestra :

Biographical classification

The Concerto for Orchestra wrote Bartók in 1943 at age 62, shortly after his escape from the Second World War, from Hungary to the United States . It was a commissioned work for the foundation of the conductor Sergei Kussewizki . Without this commission, Bartók might have given up composing after the 6th string quartet (1939). As a result, however, several other works were created, such as the sonata for solo violin and the 3rd piano concerto .

The period from August 15th to October 8th is noted on the score . The first performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on December 1, 1944 in the Symphony Hall Boston under Kusevitsky was an enormous success. Today the piece belongs to the established standard repertoire in the symphonic field.

In February 1945, seven months before his death, Bartók revised the work again. The most significant change concerns the last movement, to which the composer wrote a longer ending. Both versions were released and are still listed today.

sentences

  1. Introduzione: A solemn , mysterious introduction merges into a fast Allegro section with numerous fugal passages.
  2. Giuoco delle coppie ('Match of the Pairs') ( but see below ): This very rhythmic movement begins with a “stuttering” game of the snare drum , which comes out big at the end with a concise rhythm. One after the other, pairs of woodwind instruments begin playing related, short themes, each offset by a different interval : The bassoons have a minor sixth, the oboes play in thirds, the clarinets in sevenths, the flutes in fifths and the Trumpets in seconds.
  3. Elegia: a slow movement, typical of Bartók's so-called “night music”.
  4. Intermezzo interrotto ('interrupted interlude'): A flowing melody with time changes is ironically interrupted by a quote from Shostakovich's “Leningrad” symphony (No. 7) , which Bartók did not particularly appreciate. Shostakovich, in turn, quotes the song Da I ​​go to Maxim from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow . Bartók is increasingly distorting this banal march theme. Finally, it is interrupted and mocked by "repellent" glissandi of the trombones and "laughing" woodwinds .
  5. Finale: with the tempo designation presto (fast), in which a swirling perpetual motion machine - the main theme competes with a fireworks display of fugal passages and folk melodies.

The second sentence: Errors in the printout

While in the printed editions the second sentence bears the heading Giuoco delle coppie (Eng. "Match of the Pairs" ), it is called Presentando le coppie (Eng. "Presentation of the Couples" ) in Bartók's manuscript . The printed scores also contain an incorrect metronome number for this movement. Sir Georg Solti noticed this while preparing for a recording of the Concerto for Orchestra and the Dance Suite . He writes:

“In preparing these two works for recording, I was determined to use the tempos exactly as Bartók intended. This led to some extraordinary discoveries, particularly with regard to the second movement of the Concerto for Orchestra . The printed version of the score has a metronome number of 74 quarter notes per minute. It's very slow, but I wanted to strictly adhere to the guidelines. During rehearsals, however, the musicians didn't seem to like it at all. During the break, the drummer, who played the solo on the snare drum at the beginning, came to me and said: 'Maestro, my voice has 94 quarters a minute.' I believed there was a mistake, as none of the other individual parts contain a metronome number.

The only way to check it was to look at the manuscript. Thanks to the kind support of the Library of Congress in Washington, we received a copy of the corresponding page, which not only clearly stated 94 quarters per minute, but also the tempo designation Allegro scherzando (while the print version says Allegretto scherzando ) Bartók had formulated the heading Presentando le coppie (Eng. presentation of the couples ), not Giuoco delle coppie , (Eng. game of the couples ).

I found that very interesting, because it gives the piece a completely different character. The program for the first performance in Boston also identified the movement as Allegro scherzando , and the Bartók Archives keeper provided further clear evidence that the faster tempo is the right one. There is no doubt that the piece has already been performed thousands of times, including by myself, at the wrong pace! "

Trivia

  • In the first chapter of Thomas Pynchon's novel The Auction of No. In 49 , the main character Oedipa Maas learns about the death of a former lover and thinks among other things of “a succinct, desolate melody from the fourth movement of Bartók's orchestral concert”.

swell

  1. ↑ Hansjürgen Schaefer (Ed.): Concert Book Orchestermusik A – F. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1972, p. 81.
  2. ^ Classical Notes: Concerto for Orchestra , accessed April 8, 2011
  3. ^ Paul Griffiths: A Peacetime Hearing of the Shostakovich 'Leningrad,' Forged in War . In: The New York Times , February 22, 1999. Retrieved April 8, 2011. 
  4. ↑ Theoretical Analysis and History of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 8, 2011@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www-scf.usc.edu  
  5. ↑ From the booklet of the London LP LDR 71036, Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra and Dance Suite, Sir Georg Solti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in January 1980. Original in English.
  6. ↑ Thomas Pynchon: The auction of No. 49 . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-13550-7 , p. 7 .