Bartók: Piano Concertos

The "three Bs" of 20th century music, it could be argued, are Alban Berg, Bela Bartók and Pierre Boulez (leaving out a couple of Italians). Bartók is certainly one of the most important composers of the first half of the century (dying in 1945) who created a very characteristic musical style, fusing Western European forms with content derived from Eastern European folk music.

Bartók was a virtuoso pianist and, like Prokofiev, wrote concertos for his own use to provide additional income. He premiered the Piano Concerto No. 1 in Frankfurt in 1927 and followed it a few years later with the very difficult Concerto No. 2, composed in 1930/31 and premiered by the composer, also in Frankfurt, in 1933. The Third Concerto was composed towards the end of Bartók's life, in 1945, as a present for his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, a pianist. It was premiered in Philadelphia in 1946 with György Sándor.

The three concertos are a significant and unique contribution to the piano repertoire. I first purchased an LP of the first and third with Daniel Barenboim in the early 70s. Currently I have two performances on CD, Pierre Boulez conducting the Chicago Symphony in the first with Krystian Zimerman, the Berlin Philharmonic in the second with Leif Ove Andsnes and the London Symphony in the third with Héléne Grimaud. The other set is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with Yefim Bronfman and the LA Philharmonic. I find both recordings very fine.

In recent years Yuja Wang has done some fine performances of the first two that are available on YouTube. I may have put the first up previously. The Swedish Radio Symphony is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen:

For the second, the Berlin Philharmonic is conducted by Simon Rattle:

The second is just terrifyingly virtuosic! For the third concerto we have Martha Argerich with the Toho Gakuen Orchestra conducted by Yuri Bashmet.

If I get a chance I might do some individual posts on how these concertos are put together. But before that I have a post on Bartók's String Quartet No. 4 that I am working on.