Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)

The first movement, Introduzione, is a slow introduction of Night music type that gives way to an allegro with numerous fugato passages. This movement is in sonata-allegro form.[2]

The second movement, called "Game of Pairs" (but see note below), is in five sections, each thematically distinct from the others, with a different pair of instruments playing together in each section.[2] In each passage, a different interval separates the pair—bassoons are a minor sixth apart, oboes are in minor thirds, clarinets in minor sevenths, flutes in fifths, and muted trumpets in major seconds.[3] The movement prominently features a side drum that taps out a rhythm at the beginning and end of the movement.

While the printed score titles the second movement "Giuoco delle coppie" or "Game of the couples", Bartók's manuscript had no title at all for this movement at the time the engraving-copy blueprint was made for the publisher. At some later date, Bartók added the words "Presentando le coppie" or "Presentation of the couples" to the manuscript and the addition of this title was included in the list of corrections to be made to the score. However, in Bartók's file blueprint the final title is found, and because it is believed to have been the composer's later thought, it is retained in the revised edition of the score.[4]

The original 1946 printed score also had an incorrect metronome marking for this movement. This was brought to light by Sir Georg Solti as he was preparing to record the piece with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1980:

When preparing ... for the recording I was determined that the tempi should be exactly as Bartók wrote and this led me to some extraordinary discoveries, chief of which was in the second movement.... The printed score gives crotchet equals 74, which is extremely slow, but I thought that I must follow what it says. When we rehearsed I could see that the musicians didn't like it at all and in the break the side drum player (who starts the movement with a solo) came to me and said "Maestro, my part is marked crotchet equals 94", which I thought must be a mistake, since none of the other parts have a tempo marking. The only way to check was to locate the manuscript and through the courtesy of the Library of Congress in Washington we obtained a copy of the relevant page, which not only clearly showed crotchet equals 94, but a tempo marking of "Allegro scherzando" (the printed score gives "Allegretto scherzando"). Furthermore Bartók headed it "Presentando le coppie" (Presentation of the couples), not "Giuoco delle coppie" (Game of the couples). I was most excited by this, because it becomes a quite different piece. The programme of the first performance in Boston clearly has the movement marked "Allegro scherzando" and the keeper of the Bartók archives was able to give us further conclusive evidence that the faster tempo must be correct. I have no doubt that thousands of performances, including my own up to now, have been given at the wrong speed![5]

Despite Solti's assertion that thousands of earlier performances had been played at the wrong speed, both of Fritz Reiner's recordings – his 1946 recording with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (the first recording of the work), as well as his 1955 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (the same orchestra whose side drum player called the matter to Solti's attention) – had been played at the speed (crotchet equals 94) that Solti later recommended. Reiner had known Bartok since 1905, when they were fellow students at the Budapest Academy. And years later, in 1943, it was Reiner, along with Joseph Szigeti, who persuaded Serge Koussevitsky to commission Bartok to write the Concerto for Orchestra.[6]

The third movement, "Elegia", is another slow movement, typical of Bartók's so-called "Night music". The movement revolves around three themes which derive primarily from the first movement.[2]

The fourth movement, "Intermezzo interrotto" (literally "interrupted intermezzo"), consists of a flowing melody with changing time signatures, intermixed with a theme that quotes the song "Da geh' ich zu Maxim" from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow,[7] which had recently also been referenced in the 'invasion' theme of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad".[8][9][10] The question as to whether Bartók was parodying Lehár, Shostakovich (or both) has been hotly disputed, without any clinching evidence on either side. The theme is itself interrupted by glissandi on the trombones and woodwinds.

In this movement, the timpani are featured when the second theme is introduced, requiring 10 different pitches of the timpani over the course of 20 seconds. The general structure is "ABA–interruption–BA."[2]

The fifth movement, marked presto, consists of a whirling perpetuum mobile main theme competing with fugato fireworks and folk melodies. This is also in sonata-allegro form.[2]