Previous
Concerto for Orchestra - Bartók (1943)
Next

Create with parts and themes
Stories from the music history
The symphony orchestra - Courtesy of the The Israel Philharmonic OrchestraConcerto for Orchestra Sz116

A short while before his death, Bartok wrote his best piece ever, and this is actually the work that has given him his greatest fame, a little after his premature death, due to a malignant disease.

Bartok's last piece is the Concerto for Orchestra. However anyone who knows the different musical forms knows a concerto is designated for a solo instrument (and an orchestra), not an entire orchestra. With Bartok, everybody gets a solo part:

1
In the first movement, the cellos and the double basses play a theme that serves as a repeated motif, which will reappear throughout the work.
2
The "pair game" movement, in which a pair of bassoons plays a cheerful theme, and then come pairs of identical instruments (oboes, clarinets, flutes and trumpets), playing the theme in all different ways.
3
The "Lament" and mourning movement, in which themes of the first movements returned, after a mysterious opening in the lower strings; the movement ends in the same enigmatic, silent atmosphere.
4
A fourth movement, the "Interrupted interlude" is the movement most spoken of in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. A light playing of the repeated theme by the strings, contrasted by the woodwinds, as if joking, is interrupted by a foreign invader, the "Invasion march" from Shostakovich's 7th Symphony. The orchestra imitates the invading theme, mocks it with the trombone, and eventually sends it away, defeated.
5
The concluding movement opens with the cheering French horn, followed by a new theme, of a light, dancing character. From now on materials and subjects from the main theme will be incorporated, and the movement becomes a grand finale to this amazing piece.

Bartok gained fame with his Concerto for Orchestra. However this masterpiece also contains criticism about the success of Shostakovich's Symphony no. 7. This symphony won universal popularity, for the story of the heroic withstanding of the people of Leningrad against the German siege during World War II. Bartok thought it was successful for all the wrong reasons, since in his opinion it was not as good as the masses believed.

Go to the main menu
Home
Listen to a MIDI example
Example
The country in which it was written
Country
About the composer
Composer
About the form
Form
The period in which it was written
Period

Back to last screenMusixCool© By Nadav DafniTo The Listening Guide