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January 05, 2025
The Gaggle Music Club

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Composed in 1943, during Bartók’s years of exile in the United States, the piece was commissioned by conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the orchestra.

Bartók had emigrated to the United States in 1940. He struggled with poor health, including an undiagnosed case of leukemia. He also had to endure considerable financial difficulties as his music had limited appeal in the United States. Thanks to the generous fee Bartók received, he was able to return to composing.

Bartók called it a "concerto" rather than a symphony because the work spotlighted various instruments or groups of instruments within the orchestra, treating them almost as if the players playing them were soloists.

The Concerto for Orchestra consists of five movements, each contributing a unique character and showcasing Bartók’s mastery of orchestral color. The piece incidentally includes a parody of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, juxtaposed with Hungarian folk idioms. The finale is a tour de force of rhythmic energy and thematic development. Folk-dance elements dominate and culminate in a jubilant ending.

In the work, Bartók applies complex contrapuntal techniques and modernist tonal language to folk music. Bartók’s lifelong interest in ethnomusicology permeates the work. He incorporates folk-inspired melodies and rhythms into the work’s themes. Throughout Bartók demonstrates a profound mastery of Western contrapuntal techniques, such as fugue and canon.

The Concerto for Orchestra premiered on Dec. 1, 1944, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing and Koussevitzky conducting. The work was well received and helped to revive Bartók’s reputation. It has become one of his most performed compositions, and is celebrated as a masterpiece of the modernist repertoire, appealing both to audiences and to musicians on account of its innovative structure and vivid orchestration.

The orchestration is indeed remarkable and dazzling, allowing every section to shine; the result is a rich tapestry of colors and textures. Combining humor, pathos and technical virtuosity, the work demonstrates extraordinary ingenuity and depth. It reflects Bartók's personal and professional resilience and offers a message of hope and renewal through the energy and inspiration of the music.

In this live recording from 1992 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Seiji Ozawa conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

00:38:19
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