Bartok's Violin Concerto

Synopsis

Any composer who sets out to write a violin concerto knows that his or her new work will be measured against the famous concertos of the past. But in the fall of 1936, when the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok decided to write a violin concerto, he asked his publisher to send him some recent work of his contemporaries. After seeing what Karol Szymanowski, Kurt Weill, and Alban Berg had accomplished in the form, Bartok set to work, with much input from his violinist friend, Zoltan Szekely, for whom the new concerto was being written.

Bartok was in America when Szekely premiered his Concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Willem Mengelberg.

It was only in America, some years later, in 1943, that Bartok first heard his Concerto at a New York Philharmonic concert. He wrote, "I was most happy that there is nothing WRONG with the scoring. Nothing needs to be changed, even though orchestral accompaniment of the violin is a very delicate business."

If Bartok was happy with the scoring, he wasn't very pleased with one New York music critic, who wrote that he didn't think the new work would ever displace the great violin concertos of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Brahms.

"How is it possible to write such an idiotic thing," commented Bartok. "What fool fit for a madhouse would want to displace these works with his own?"

Music Played in Today's Program

Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945) Violin Concerto No. 1 Kyung-Wha Chung, violin; Chicago Symphony; Sir Georg Solti, cond. London 411 804

On This Day

Births

• 1834 - German composer, pianist and organist Julius Ruebke, in Hausneindorf, near Quedlinburg;

• 1878 - Austrian composer Franz Schrecker, in Monaco;

• 1895 - French-born American composer, painter and mystical philosopher Dane Rudhyar, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1731 - Bach: "St. Mark Passion" (S. 247, now lost) performed in Leipzig at Vespers on Good Friday;

• 1748 - Handel: oratorio "Alexander Balus" in London at the Covent Garden Theater; The event possibly included the premiere of Handel's "Concerto a due cori" No. 1 as well (Gregorian date: April 3);

• 1783 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 13 and final version of Symphony No. 35 ("Haffner"), at the Vienna Burgtheater, with composer as piano soloist and conductor; An earlier version of the symphony was performed in Salzburg at private concerts arranged by the wealthy Haffner family in the summer of 1782;

• 1792 - Haydn: Symphony No. 94 ("Surprise"), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London;

• 1828 - Beethoven: String Quartet in F, Op. 135 (posthumously, and almost one year to the day after the composer's death on March 26, 1827), in Vienna, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet;

• 1886 - Tchaikovsky: "Manfred" Symphony (after Byron), in Moscow (Julian date: Mar. 11);

• 1912 - Gliere: Symphony No. 3 ("Ilya Murometz") in Moscow (Julian date: Mar. 10);

• 1917 - Bloch: "Trois poèmes juifs" (Three Jewish Poems), in Boston, with the composer conducting;

• 1923 - de Falla: opera "El retrablo de maese Pedro" (Master Peter's Puppet Show) (concert version), in Seville at the Teatro San Fernando;

• 1935 - Barber: "Music for a Scene from Shelley," by the New York Philharmonic;

• 1939 - Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2, by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg conducting and Zoltán Székely as the soloist; A live recording of this premiere performance has been issued on both LP and CD;

• 1944 - Cowell: "Hymn and Fuguing Tune" No. 2 for strings, in New York on a WEAF radio broadcast featuring Henri Nosco and his Concert Orchestra; The first concert hall performance took place at Town Hall in New York on October 8, 1944, with the Daniel Saidenburg Little Symphony;

• 1945 - Copland (and 9 other composers): "Variations on a Theme by Eugene Goosens," by the Cincinnati Symphony;

• 1946 - Marc Blitzstein: "Airbourne Symphony," in New York City;

• 1962 - Irving Fine: "Symphony 1962" by the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch conducting;

• 1969 - Gene Gutchë: "Genghis Khan," by American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1999 - James MacMillan: "Cumnock Fair" for piano and strings, at Cumnock Academy by members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra;

Others

• 1703 - Antonio Vivaldi becomes a Roman Catholic priest at age 25;

• 1721 - Handel completes the composition of Act 3 of "Muzio Scevola," as part of a "competition" arranged by the directors of the Royal Academy of Music to settle the rivalry between their three house composers (Filippo Amadei composed Act 1, Giovanni Bononcinni Act 2, and Handel Act 3); Handel was deemed the victor in this "contest" (Gregorian date: April 3);

• 1729 - J.S. Bach visits Coethen to perform funeral music for his former employer, Prince Leopold;

• 1743 - London premiere of what is billed as "A New Sacred Oratorio" by Handel(Gregorian date: April 3); This was his "Messiah" which had its first performance in Dublin the previous year;