Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz. 112 & Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116

Featuring

Emmanuel Krivine
Tedi Papavrami
Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg
Béla Bartók

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Historical Context

Bartók emigrated to the United States in 1940 to escape Nazism, and his final years were difficult due to leukemia.

Composition History

Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 was long considered his only violin concerto until an earlier work was discovered in 1960, leading to its renumbering.

Composer Biography

Béla Bartók, a major figure in 20th-century music, was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, a town now located in Romania.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Bartók's music is characterized by its harsh, robust, and angular qualities, often superimposing sound layers contrapuntally, yet also featuring broad melodic lines.

Composition History

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was his last completed score, commissioned by Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky, director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Compositional Technique

The Concerto for Orchestra is structured in an 'arch' form with five movements, where the outer movements are the longest, two scherzos are in the second and fourth positions, and a slow 'Elegia' is central.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Bartók's compositions are consistently infused with intonations and rhythms from Central European folk music, which he studied scientifically with his friend Zoltán Kodály.