In the introduction to the score Bartók gave very precise instructions about how the different percussion instruments should be played, the kinds of beaters to be used, and a plan of how they were to be grouped on stage.
There are three movements: a fast movement, a slow movement and a fast movement. The first movement starts with a slow introduction.
There are many interesting and unusual things to listen out for in the music. For example, in the first movement the timpani sometimes play glissandos. This means that the pitch of the notes slides up or down. The player needs to have timpani with pedals to do this. This movement is in sonata form.
The second movement sounds very creepy. Bartók quite often wrote music which sounded like insects at night. This is one of his “night pieces”. In the climax to this exciting music Piano One plays lots of glissandos.
The last movement is a big contrast to the atmosphere in the slow movement. It is like a lively dance.
The sonata was first performed in Basle in 1938 with the composer playing one piano and his wife Ditta playing the other one. Fritz Schiesser and Philipp Rühlig played the percussion. It immediately became very popular and has since been one of his best- known works. Bartók also made a version for the two pianos to play with an orchestra, but it is not normally performed like that.
Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)
Concerto for Orchestra is the title of a work for orchestra by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It is one of the most famous orchestral pieces of the mid-20th century.
Several composers have written works to which they gave the title “Concerto for Orchestra”. It is an unusual title because a concerto is normally a work for one solo instrument and an orchestra. The soloist is given a lot of opportunity to show off his (or her) talent. In a “Concerto for Orchestra” there is no soloist, but the composer thinks it is different from a symphony because a lot of the instruments in the orchestra are treated like soloists during the piece. This is what happens in Béla Bartók’s concerto.
The work was written in 1943 and it was first performed on 1 December 1944 in the Boston Symphony Hall by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. It was immediately a great success. Koussevitszky asked Bartók to write this piece. Bartók had just arrived in United States from Hungary. He had to flee because of World War II. Bartók had no money and so he was glad to get some work.
Bartók often uses ideas from the Classical music period in this work. He also uses ideas from folk music from central Europe, especially Hungarian music. Quite often the music is not in a major or minor key. He uses folk scales which have different kinds of scales called modes. Sometimes tunes sound like folk music. At other times there are drones in the horns and strings.
The orchestra needs 3 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling cor anglais), 3 clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), 4 French horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tamtam, 2 harps and strings
The first movement, called "Introduzione" by Bartók, is a slow introduction which sounds like music describing the night. This is something Bartók did several times in his works. It is in sonata form.
The second movement is called "Giuoco delle coppie" which means "Game of pairs". Pairs of instruments take it in turns to play a tune, each pair playing music which is separated by a different interval.
The third movement, called "Elegia" by Bartók, is another slow movement, typical of Bartók's night music.
The fourth movement, called "Intermezzo interrotto" by Bartók, has a flowing melody with a time signature which keeps changing. There is also a theme which pokes fun at the march tune in Dmitri Shostakovich's ""Leningrad" Symphony (No. 7)". There is a very difficult bit for the timpani where the player has to play lots of different pitches in a very short section.
The fifth movement, called "Finale" is a very fast movement with lots of energy and plenty of folk tunes.
Bluebird K7
Bluebird K7 was a boat built for Donald Campbell to break the World Water Speed Record. Bluebird was a special kind of boat, called a hydroplane, that skims over the top of the water instead of pushing through it like a normal boat. Bluebird was powered by a jet engine. It set new world water speed records seven times; the fastest was 276 mph (445 km/h). Bluebird was destroyed when Campbell tried to set an eighth record by going faster than 300 mph (480 km/h) on Coniston Water in 1967.
Campbell had been using his father's boat, Bluebird K4, to try and set new records. Bluebird K4 was destroyed when its structure broke. After this, Donald had the idea for a jet powered hydroplane to take the world water speed record from the American propeller hydroplane Slo-mo-shun. Ken and Lewis Norris designed and built K7 based on Donald's ideas.
K7 was a three-point hydroplane, meaning that when going quickly the boat only touched the water in three places, one point near the back of the boat and one point at the back of the two sponsons (the sponsons are the floats either side of the boat, near its front in the photos). It was built of aluminium on top of a steel frame and was at first powered by a small turbojet.
The name K7 came from the rating given to the boat by Lloyds of London
Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between 1955 and 1964:
In 1966, Campbell decided he wanted to make Bluebird go faster than 300 mph (480 km/h).
Bluebird's old engine was not strong enough to make it go this fast, so it was replaced with a more powerful Bristol Siddeley Orpheus engine taken from an old fighter jet. Many other changes were made, the tail fin from the fighter was attached to Bluebird's rear, the cover over the cockpit was changed to push through the air more easily, and the floats at the front were also changed. Bluebird was taken to Coniston Water to be tested in 1966. The tests did not go well, the weather was too bad to test the boat while moving, so it was tied down and tested without moving instead. When testing the engine it sucked in too much air and caused parts of the boat to break. The engine was broken when the broken parts were sucked into it. This meant that the entire engine had to be replaced.
At the end of November the weather was good enough for some test runs, but the speed was a lot lower than Bluebird's old records. The fuel pumps could not pump enough fuel to the engine so it could not run at full speed. The problem was fixed by fitting two fuel pumps instead of one.
On 4 January 1967, the problems had all been fixed, the weather was good and Campbell decided he wanted to try and break the speed record. For a world record to be official, a boat trying to set a record has to make two runs at full speed that are timed by people who are not part of the record breaking team. The official speed is the average speed of the two runs. On the first run Bluebird's speed was 297.6 mph (478.9 km/h) which was fast enough to be a new record, but not quite as fast as Campbell wanted to go. To set a record of more than 300 mph the second run would have to be 302.5 mph or faster.
The plan for the world record attempt was for Bluebird to stop at the far end of the lake and refuel from another boat that had been put there for that purpose. Taking time to refuel would also give the lake, which had been disturbed by the first run, time to settle down again. On the actual record attempt, Campbell decided not to refuel and instead started on his second run immediately. Why he did this is unknown.