Bartok Violin Concerto No. 2

During Bartok’s life, the violin concerto we now know as Violin
Concerto No. 2 was simply known as Bartok’s only violin concerto.
The reason? His first concerto, written when he was a much
younger man, had never been performed or published. This was a
deeply painful memory for Bartok, who had written the concerto
for a woman he was in love with, Stefi Geyer, but Geyer refused
both Bartok’s advances and the concerto itself, and so it
remained unperformed and unpublished until after Bartok’s death.
Bartok had written other works for violin and orchestra,
including a rhapsody written for his friend and recital partner
Zoltan Szekely. Szekely continuously asked Bartok to write him a
full blown concerto, but Bartok refused again and again, until
finally in 1936 Bartok agreed. But even then, Bartok wasn’t so
easy to pin down. Bartok resisted the idea of a full scale
concerto, saying to Szekely that he wanted to write a theme and
variations for violin and orchestra, but Szekely refused, and
demanded a 3 movement standard concerto. Bartok finally agreed,
but as you’ll see later, he found a way to get his theme and
variations in anyway! The concerto took two years to write,
partly due to Bartok being busy with some of his greatest large
scale works, but also because of Bartok’s acute stress due to the
rise of fascism across Europe. He was constantly thinking of
emigrating from his native Hungary, and finally in 1938 he left.
As he wrote to his friend: “What is most appalling is the
imminent danger that Hungary too will surrender to this system of
robbers and murderers..." All of these competing impulses -
Bartok’s bitter memories of his first concerto, the turbulent
political siutation, and his seeming lack of confidence in
writing a full scale concerto, contributed to the delay, but
finally in 1938 the piece was finished and was triumphantly
premiered on April 24, 1939 in Amsterdam. This concerto is one of
the greatest 20th century violin concertos, and is full of a
massive amount of brilliant detail as well as an urgently
emotional and passionate character. It is a gigantic, nearly 40
minute long piece, and its difficulties for both the violinist
and the orchestra are immense. Today we’ll talk about all of the
ins and outs of this remarkable concerto, including its
challenges, its beauties, its emotional scope, and its brilliant
combination of tonality and 12 tone music. Join us!


Recording: Danish Radio Symphony, Augustin Hadelich, Violin,
Vasily Petrenko Cond.