RAVEL ’ S PIANO CONCERTO IN G and brilliant , and not aim at profundity or at dramatic effects . It has been said of certain classics that their concertos were written not ‘ for ’ but ‘ against ’ the piano . I heartily agree . I had intended to title this concerto ‘ Divertissement .’ Then it occurred to me that there was no need to do so because the title ‘ Concerto ’ should be sufficiently clear .”
Instrumentation : Flute and piccolo , oboe and English horn , B-flat and E-flat clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , trumpet , trombone , timpani , triangle , snare drum , cymbals , bass drum , tam-tam , wood block , whip , harp , and strings , in addition to the solo piano .
Béla Bartók
Born March 25 , 1881 , in Nagyszentmiklós , Hungary ( now Sânnicolau Mare , Romania ) Died September 26 , 1945 , in New York City foundation required him to give Bartók a check for half the amount in order to secure the commission and that the remaining half would wait until the piece was completed . Bartók accepted the plan and the much-needed check , and during the summer and early fall of 1943 he managed to write the entire Concerto for Orchestra at a rural mountain getaway at Saranac Lake , in upstate New York .
What Koussevitzky got for his money was a splendid showpiece for his orchestra — for many of the solo windplayers and percussionists , as well as for the ensemble as a whole . Bartók provided a comment to help the listener : “ The general mood of the work represents , apart from the jesting second movement , a gradual transition from the sternness of the first moment and the lugubrious deathsong of the third to the life-assertion of the last one .” These three movements are the “ big ” sections of the piece , with the second and fourth movements (“ Game of Pairs ” and “ Interrupted Intermezzo ”) being more lightweight intermezzos .
Bartók attended the premiere in Boston against his doctors ’ advice , and the enthusiastic cheering would be a highlight of his career . “ It was worth the while ,” he reported succinctly . After the premiere he lengthened the Finale ( which he considered too abrupt ), bringing this masterpiece into the form in which it is nearly always heard today .
Instrumentation : Three flutes ( third doubling piccolo ), three oboes ( third doubling English horn ), three clarinets ( third doubling bass clarinet ), three bassoons ( third doubling contrabassoon ), four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , timpani , triangle , side drum , bass drum , cymbals , tam-tam , two harps , and strings .
CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA [ 1943 ]
Bartók grew increasingly desperate as the Nazis overtook Central Europe in the 1930s , but he felt compelled to stay in his native Hungary to look after his adored mother . She died in 1939 , and in the fall of 1940 he and his family arrived in New York . The 59-year-old Bartók felt depressed and isolated . He lacked energy and was plagued by ill health , the first symptoms of the leukemia that would kill him five years later . By the summer of 1943 , he was so infirm that he was confined to a hospital .
At the instigation of two of Bartók ’ s similarly displaced Hungarian friends , the conductor Fritz Reiner and the violinist Joseph Szigeti , Serge Koussevitzky ( director of the Boston Symphony ) dropped by the hospital to offer him a thousand-dollar commission for a new symphonic work . This was an act of charity : Bartók ’ s weight had fallen to 87 pounds , and he was all but bankrupt . Resistant to handouts , Bartók refused on the grounds that he doubted he could deliver the piece . But Koussevitzky improvised the white lie that his
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