Bartók: The Piano Concertos

Béla Bartók's Piano Concertos consist of 3 Piano Concertos, which were composed in 1926, 1930-31 & 1945. In this album, the pianist is Géza Anda, the orchestra is the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the conductor is Ferenc Fricsay.

## Bartók's 1st Piano Concerto

Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83, BB 91 was composed in 1926. A typical performance would be around 24 minutes.

### Background

For almost three years, Bartók hadn't composed much. He broke that silence with several piano works, one of which was the Piano Concerto, which was composed between August and November 1926.

### Premieres

The First Piano Concerto was first 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 as the conductor. The scheduled 1927 American premiere in Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic, on a tour by Bartók, was canceled by conductor Willem Mengelberg due to poor rehearsing. Bartók's Rhapsody had to be substituted into the program. The Concerto eventually premiered in the USA on February 13, 1928 in the same venue, with Fritz Reiner conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Bartók as the soloist.

### Analysis

The concerto comes after an increased interest in 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 tension that is characteristic of Bartók. Here, as elsewhere in Bartók's output, the piano is used like a percussion instrument. The importance of the other percussion instruments is illustrated by Bartók’s note: "The percussion (including timpani) must be placed directly next to the piano (behind the piano)." This note is used in a number of printed scores, restored in recent printings. 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."

### Instrumentation

The concerto is scored for an orchestra consisting of a solo piano, two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (one doubling cor anglais), two clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons, four horns in F, two trumpets in C, three trombones, timpani, two snare drums (one with snares and one without), bass drum, four cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, and strings.

### Movements

The movements are named as follows:

1. Allegro moderato – Allegro
2. Andante – attacca
3. Allegro molto

## Bartók's 2nd Piano Concerto

Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Sz. 95, BB 101 (1930–31), the second of his three piano concertos, is famous for being one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire.

### Composition

In approaching the composition, Bartók wanted the music to be more contrapuntal. He also wanted to simplify his music (like many of his contemporaries), but his use of counterpoint in this piece makes for an extremely complicated piece of music. This feature had proven particularly troublesome in the First Concerto, so much so, in fact, that the New York Philharmonic, which was to have given the premiere, couldn't learn it in time, and Bartók's Rhapsody had to be substituted into the program. The composer himself claimed in a 1939 article to have composed this concerto as a direct contrast to his First Concerto, acknowledging that the First "is a bit difficult — one might even say very difficult! — as much for orchestra as for audience." Even so, the Second Concerto is famous for its difficulty. András Schiff said, "For the piano player, it's a finger-breaking piece. [It] is probably the single most difficult piece that I have ever played, and I usually end up with a keyboard covered by blood." Stephen Kovacevich also said that it was the most technically demanding piece he had ever played and that he nearly paralysed his hands while preparing the piece.The concerto was dated 1930-31, but it wasn't premiered until January 23, 1933 in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Hans Rosbaud with Bartók as the soloist. The first performance in Hungary was later that same year, conducted by Otto Klemperer with Louis Kentner playing the piano at Bartók's request. Bartók himself played the work at the Proms in London under Sir Henry Wood as early as January 7, 1936, an initiative of the BBC music producer Edward Clark. (Whether this was the UK premiere, it hasn't been confirmed; it was in any case three years before the United States premiere.) The first performance in the United States was given in Chicago on March 2, 1939, with Storm Bull as the soloist and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock. The French premiere was given in 1945 by Yvonne Loriod, who had learnt it in only eight days.

### Movements

The movements are named as follows:

1. Allegro
2. Adagio — Presto — Adagio
3. Allegro molto — Più allegro

### Analysis

The overall form of the Second Concerto is consistent—the tempo structure is fast-slow-fast-slow-fast—in the Bartókian manner that has come to be identified as arch form. The first movement, marked Allegro, is highlighted by the active, punctuating piano solo. The piano's quick, rhythmic pace and sketchy scalar movement suggest the influence of Igor Stravinsky, and the ballet Petrushka (1910–11) in particular, while other characteristics point to The Firebird; the main theme of the movement, introduced by the trumpets, is a reference to The Firebird's finale.

### Instrumentation

The concerto is scored for an orchestra consisting of a solo piano, two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets in B flat, two bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns in F, three trumpets in C, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and strings.

## Bartók's 3rd Piano Concerto

Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 in E major, Sz. 119, BB 127 is a musical composition for piano and orchestra. Bartók composed the piece in 1945 during the final months of his life, as a surprise birthday present for his second wife Ditta Pásztory-Bartók. It consists of three movements.

### Context

The Piano Concerto No. 3 was one of the pieces composed by Bartók after departing Hungary following the outbreak of World War II. Bartók's migration from Europe to America preceded that of his music. Lack of local interest, combined with Bartók's extended battle with leukaemia and a general sense of discomfort in the American atmosphere prevented Bartók from composing a great deal in his early years in America. Fortunately, the composer was instructed to create his Concerto for Orchestra which was extremely well received and decreased the composer's financial difficulties. This, combined with a decrease of his medical condition, allowed for a change in the composer's general tone. The changes in the composer's emotional and financial state are considered by a few to be the primary causes for the third piano concerto's seemingly light, airy, almost neoclassical tone, especially in comparison to Bartók's earlier works. However, while the composition of a piece as a gift (his wife Ditta Pásztory-Bartók's upcoming 42nd birthday on October 31, 1945 - Bartók designed the solo part for her to perform, providing her with a source of income after his death) as opposed to an instruction definitely impacted the composing process, some think it more likely that the piece was instead the completion of a trend of simplification, which began almost ten years previously, with the Second Violin Concerto, and which concluded Bartók's exploration of tonality and complexity. Bartók died on September 26, 1945, with the concerto unfinished. The task of completing orchestration of the final 17 measures, drawing from Bartók's notes, was eventually completed by the composer's friend, Tibor Serly. The Third Piano Concerto was later published in an edition by Serly and Erwin Stein, an editor for Boosey & Hawkes. It was premiered in Philadelphia on February 8, 1946 under Hungarian conductor Eugene Ormandy with György Sándor as piano soloist. The piece has since been adapted for two pianos by Mátyás Seiber. Beginning in the 1990s, the composer's son, Peter Bartók, in association with Argentinian musician Nelson Dellamaggiore, worked to re-print and revise past editions of the Third Piano Concerto, to erase the many printed errors identified but never corrected by his father. Although few in actual number, changes made to the Piano Concerto affected the pitch content, pedalling and tempos of several key passages. In 1994 Andrey Kasparov was soloist with the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic (formerly Columbus Pro Musica) in the world premiere of the revised edition. According to conductor David Bowden, and Peter Bartók, who was in attendance: “These changes generally make the piano part more accessible or analyse questions of chordal structure....” The revised editions of both the two-piano reduction and the orchestral score of the Piano Concerto No. 3 are now available from Boosey & Hawkes.

### Movements

The movements are named as follows:

1. Allegretto
2. Adagio religioso
3. Allegro vivace

### Instrumentation

The piece was originally scored for 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling cor anglais), 2 clarinets in A and B Flat (2nd doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings, and piano.

### Analysis

A typical performance lasts for about 23 minutes. The first movement, based basically in E major, features an original Hungarian "folk theme," similar to a nineteenth-century Hungarian verbunkos dance. The theme is first introduced by the piano. The first chord of the first movement, which consists of four pitches, E, F Sharp, A, and B, implying both E Dorian and E Mixolydian, is relatively tonal, especially when compared to the first chord of Piano Concerto No. 1. The chord develops further with the addition of C Sharp in the second bar, resulting in the pentatonic, which is followed with G Sharp, leaving a major scale short of D Sharp. Bartók continues to add D to complete the Mixolydian scale, followed by G natural to suggest the Dorian mode. Finally, in bar six, Bartók displays the Lydian mode through G Sharp and A Sharp.This complex melodic pattern is an example of what Bartók called "polymodal chromaticism," the rapid succession of many modes through chromatic alteration to produce a chromatic texture.

The second movement, based in C major, seems to mirror the style of a Beethoven chorale. The string introduction followed by the chorale on piano is a clear quotation to the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor. Bartók includes a harmony related to the Tristan chord, a set of intervals from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde referred to as the "characteristically sad and yearning harmony of Romanticism." The final settlement of the Tristan chord comes as a C-based pentatonic mode, and as Bartók was known to consider pentatony a chief characteristic of ancient Hungarian folksong, this can be considered a musical symbol of his Hungarian homeland. The middle section is in Bartók's Night music style. It contains impressions of natural sounds of insect and bird calls.

The third and final movement demonstrates a joie de vivre and possible optimism often found in Bartók's final movements, though with considerably stronger folk inspiration with its supposed Hungarian folk melody and its rondo-like returning theme. It has been said that this movement "captures the infectious ebullient spirit of the folk song." There is also a central fugato section in an almost Baroque style.

## Program Note - Bartók with an authentic voice

"When Fricsay and I had to repeat the third movement of Bartók's Second Concerto at the opening concert of the ISCM Festival in Salzburg in 1952 it established what had long been awaited: the piece's acceptance as part of the classical repertory. That performance was followed not only by a period of intensive artistic collaboration - we gave about 60 performances of Bartók's Second Concerto alone - but also by the renewal of an almost brotherly friendship."

That is how Géza Anda, the soloist in these recordings of Bartók's three concertos, began his memoir of Ferenc Fricsay, in the commemorative volume published a year after the conductor's death. The passage immediately outlines the reasons why the recordings they made together in Berlin in September 1959 and October 1960 should be included in this series. The two friends, Ferenc Fricsay (1914-63) and Géza Anda (1921-76), were both Hungarian who emerged from the same talent-school, namely the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. Their time there coincided with a revival of interest in Hungarian music, which neither of them doubted began with the work and influence of Bartók and Kodály, as two truly independent, original musicians. It is not surprising, therefore, that Anda and Fricsay became champions of the music of their compatriot Bartók.

In a Europe which had lost touch with the music of our century during the upheavals of the Second World War, the arousal of an audience to such a pitch of enthusiasm that individual movements had to be repeated was an event of considerable significance. It showed that the two musicians were capable of that recreation of "the miracle of a work's genesis" of which the Swiss diplomat, historian and essayist Carl Jacob Burckhardt writes that it "always evades new realization unless it is new-made as on the first day. Therein lies the greatness of of the real interpreter which is equal to that of the creator". Fricsay and Anda undeniably belonged to the ranks of "real interpreters", and gave performances of unique expressive power.

It can rarely have been the case in the history of music that two artists of such stature have devoted themselves to promoting the *œuvre* of a composer of their own day in the concert hall and the recording studio with such missionary zeal. The fact that Béla Bartók and his works now belong to the standard repertory throughout the world is due in some measure at least to the burning intensity and almost unbelievable number of perfomances given by these two Hungarians. It is also a result of the recordings they made, which, from the depth of their knowledge of Bartók and his music, provide the yardstick by which all others must still be measured.

Although the recording of the First Concerto made in 1960 was no less penetrating a success, it is above all the performances of the Second and Third Concertos which have acquired legendary fame (as well as being awarded the Grand Prix du Disque in 1961). Well as the artists must have known the pieces, the recordings were spread over no fewer than nine sessions in the late summer of 1959. It was the beginning of the last phase in Fricsay's career and followed almost a year's absence from the podium, due to illness. The first work he chose to perform at a public concert after his return, in the same month as the recording was made, was Bartók's Second Concerto with "his" orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (now known as the German Symphony Orchestra). He was its chief conductor from 1948, with only a short interruption, until his death, and it was, by his own account, the orchestra which he preferred to play Bartók. One Berlin critic wrote of that concert: "At its centre was Bartók's Second Piano Concerto, which achieved almost the excitement of a world première as performed with the sovereign, elastic pianism of Géza Anda and an orchestra compelled to the most extreme rhythmic attentiveness." Much of that excitement is preserved in these recordings.

*Lutz von Pufendorf*

*(Translation: Mary Whittall)*

## Reviews

The album received some generally positive reviews. It is one of the best (or possibly The best) recordings of Bartók's Piano Concertos.

The 2010 edition of The Gramophone Classical Music Guide, said "Much as you'd like to tout the new as the best, there are some older recordings where a very special chemistry spells 'definitive', and that pose an almost impossible challenge to subsequent rivals. Such is this 1959 recording of Bartók's Second Piano Concerto, a tough, playful, pianistically aristocratic performance where dialogue is consistently keen and spontaneity is captured on the wing (even throughout numerous sessions). The first movement is relentless but never tires the ear; the second displays two very different levels of tension, one slow and mysterious, the other hectic but controlled; and although others might have thrown off the finale's octaves with even greater abandon, Anda's performance is the most successful in suggesting savage aggression barely held in check. The Third Concerto is again beautifully moulded and carefully thought through. Moments such as the loving return from the second movement's chirpy central episode are quite unforgettable, while the finale is both nimble and full toned. The First Concerto was the last to be recorded and is perhaps the least successful of the three: here ensemble is occasionally loose, and characterisation less vivid than with some. Still, it's a fine performance and the current transfer has been lovingly effected."

Here are some more reviews:

*"Anda's virtuoso performance of the piano part, the sensitive partnering he receives from Fricsay and the exceptionally well-rehearsed orchestra have produced an interpretation which can safely be described as ideal and unsurpassable."* Karl Löbl on a performance of Bartók's Second Piano Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Viennese paper *Express*, 16 October 1961.

*"Anda's performances have aquired classic status ... Anda seems ideally cast as soloist and Fricsay is a natural Bartókian. The performances are refined yet urgent, incisive but red-blooded, too."* *The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs*, on the present recordings.

*"Fricsay understood better than most of his colleagues how to bring out the undertones and the intermediate tones of Bartók's music. This recording breathes the ... spirit of a deep emotion, above all in the outer sections of the Adagio religioso and the nocturnal hauntings of its central section. There is an ever-present sensation that behind it lies something like the acceptance of fate ... a simplicity which is achieved only after passing through complexity. In this sense, the Third Piano Concerto represents a summa of Bartók's œuvre, and no recording conveys this more convincingly than the one made by Anda and Fricsay in 1959."* Ulrich Schreiber in the North German Radio series "Grand Prix", 15 June 1994.

## Links

For the playlist of the album, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nddGYO6nHEU&list=OLAK5uy\_lQCAEJMTMyKG04x3wkouesRGPArH1CJ-Q

For more details on the album, click here: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/bartok-klavierkonzerte-nos-1-3-anda-2622

For the official Deutsche Grammophon website, click here: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en

## Notes

* Art Direction - Hartmut Pfeiffer
* Composer - Béla Bartók
* Conductor - Ferenc Fricsay
* Engineers - Günter Hermanns, Werner Wolf
* Executive Producer - Elsa Schiller
* Liner Notes (German) - Lutz von Pufendorf
* Liner Notes (English translation) - Mary Whittall
* Liner Notes (French translation) - Hélène Chen-Ménissier
* Liner Notes (Italian Translation) - Gabriele Cervone
* Orchestra - Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
* Photographers - Siegfried Lauterwasser, Studio Legrand, Erich Auerbach, Werner Neumeister (Cover)
* Pianist - Géza Anda
* Producers - Hans Weber, Otto Gerdes
* Sound - Stereo
* Recording dates - October 1960 (1st Concerto), September 1959 (2nd & 3rd Concertos)
* Recording venue - Berlin, Jesus-Christus-Kirche
* Total duration - 77'59