Piano Concerto No. 1 (Bartók)

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor , Sz. 83, BB 91 of Béla Bartók was composed in 1926. It is about 23 to 24 minutes long.

Background

For almost three years, Bartók had composed nothing. He broke that silence with several piano works, one which was the piano concerto. He composed it between August and November 1926.

Premieres

The work premiered at the fifth International Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Frankfurt on July 1, 1927, with Bartók as the soloist and Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting. Jascha Horenstein was Furtwängler's assistant and prepared the orchestra for the concerto.

The scheduled 1927 American premiere by the New York Philharmonic in New York, on a tour by Bartók, was canceled by conductor Mengelberg due to insufficient rehearsing. The Concerto eventually premiered in the USA on February 13, 1928 at Carnegie Hall, with Fritz Reiner conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Bartók as the soloist.

Analysis

The concerto comes after an increased interest on Baroque music on the part of Bartók, which is demonstrated by such devices as the increased use of counterpoint. The work, however, retains the harshness and dissonance that is characteristic of Bartók. Here, as elsewhere in Bartók's output, the piano is used percussively.

The first movement is based on two motives, an ostinato rhythm first introduced by the timpani and a narrow-ranging melodic fragment played by the horns; while it begins with brass clusters and harsh dissonances, the melodic element gains greater and greater importance throughout the movement. The second movement is an example of what is known as Bartók's "night music". The strings and brass are silent; a duet for piano and percussion becomes the backdrop to an eerie and dissonant woodwind melody, and then recurs to bring the movement to a cadence. The third movement follows immediately as percussion take up its rhythm; it is a fast and lively "rondo" in which the returns of the main theme are greatly varied.

Bartók wrote of the concerto: "My first concerto [...] I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and the public." The concerto is considered one of the more technically challenging works of its kind.

Movements

# Allegro moderato - Allegro
# Andante - attacca
# Allegro molto

ource

* Liner notes by Paolo Petazzi to DG Recording of the concerto by Maurizio Pollini

External links

* [http://facstaff.uww.edu/allsenj/MSO/NOTES/0506/3.Nov05.html Programme notes] by Michael Allsen