Gyorgy Pauk, the violinist on this recording, was born in Budapest in 1936 and plays the 1714 Massart Stradivarius.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Bartók's early career was influenced by Richard Strauss and a growing interest in Hungarian national music, a field he researched extensively with Zoltán Kodály, a fellow Hungarian composer.
Composition History
Contrasts was commissioned by American jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman through the agency of violinist Joseph Szigeti and was originally intended as a two-movement work.
Compositional Technique
The first movement of Bartók's Violin Sonata No. 1 has piano sonorities reminiscent of the Indonesian gamelan, and the violin part often features Hungarian rhythms.
Composition History
Bartók's Violin Sonata No. 1 was dedicated to the Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi, who premiered the work with him in London in 1922.
Compositional Technique
In Contrasts, Bartók emphasizes the differences between the piano, clarinet, and violin, and the final movement features the violinist playing on a mistuned instrument, like a village fiddler.
Composer Biography
Béla Bartók, a Hungarian composer, was born in Nagyszentmiklós, a region of Hungary later acquired by Romania.
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