BARTOK VIOLIN CONCERTO
Béla Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 In B Minor, SZ 112, BB117. (1937-1938)
1. Allegro Non-Troppo
2. Andante Tranquillo
3. Allegro Molto
Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945) was a Hungarian composer and pianist, and was one of the most profound musicians of the twentieth century.
A smallpox inoculation gave the infant Bartók a rash that remained with him until he was five years old. As a result he spent his early years detached from other children and people and spent many hours listening to his mother play the piano, which would have resulted in early musical stimulation. Bartók showed early musical aptitude and began to compose dances at the tender age of nine. Born in Romania, his mother, Paula moved
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The suggestion did not meet with Székely’s approval, and he insisted that the work must be a bona fide concerto in three movements. Bartók accommodated and completed the concerto on the last day of December 1938. Székely played it the following April in Amsterdam under the baton of the Dutch conductor, Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951). He was thrilled with the work, even after Bartók pointed out that while it presented itself to be written as a bona fide concerto, he had – as a little private joke – pleased himself by making it the variation work he was wanted to originally compose. Compared to the second concerto, the first concerto’s ‘ basic motives are by no means so readily discovered as those of the second concerto this work being somewhat less economical and its architecture less compactly integrated’. 4
3 Elliott Antokotetz, The Music of Béla Bartók, A study of tonality and progression in twentieth-century music, California, University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. 1984, 1
4 Halsey Stevens, The Life and Music of Béla Bartók, Revised Edition Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1993 228
When Székely commissioned the work, he had no idea that Bartók had already written a Violin Concerto in 1907, at age twenty-six, nearly thirty years before. And the First Concerto was not known to exist until after Bartók ‘s death in 1945. Only in 1956 was the
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Beethoven wrote the Violin Concerto for his friend Franz Clement, a great violinist of his time. The concerto was first preformed in the Theatre an der Wien in Vienna on December 23, 1806, as a benefit concert for Clement. The concerto was well received by the public but the music critics did not approve. The music critics thought it was dull and too long while violinists criticized it for being too
Beethoven's talents were discovered at an early age, and he was sent to Vienna to study under different teachers including Mozart and Hayden. There, Beethoven quickly adopted a reputation of a great piano player, a child prodigy. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight and published his first
Looking back in time at the great composers of the world, only one foreign composer stands out for his many contributions to classical music and in helping America to find its own music. Antonin Leopold Dvorak was born on September 8th, 1841, in a small village of Nelahozeves in Bohemia that lies on the bank of the Mauldau River. The village Dvorak was born into was in good company and surroundings however also retained much of its native luster even through the worst times of political oppression (1).
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The Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Opus 26 is one of the most famous violin concertos over the musical history. It is also considered to be the most renowned work by the German composer Max Bruch. I will begin with a short explanation of why I choose to analyse this piece followed by what makes this piece so remarkable. I will then present the musical context – German Romantic period – in which this piece was composed and discuss how it is representative of this period. Also, I will present briefly the biography of the composer and relate his life and style with this particular piece of music. After, I will explain the basic structure of a concerto, associate it with this violin concerto, and analyse how each movement is related. Then,
Since the Baroque era, the concerto has played a vital role in the music world. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a concerto is “a composition for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” There are two main types: the concerto grosso and the classical concerto; both will be discussed later. While the term concerto is relatively easy to understand in context, when put into use the term becomes more complicated to define.
Plantiga, Leon. "Beethoven's Concertos: History, Style and Performance. " New York: W.W.Norton, inc., 1999. pp.3-21, 113-158
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As noted by Robert Hughes, "Beethoven was not only the embodiment of all that was before him, but also of that which was yet to come" (Hughes 486). The truth of this may be seen by comparing Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C Minor to Haydn, the father of Symphony, and his 95th in C Minor. While Haydn's symphony is both playful and dramatic, Beethoven's symphony is grander both in terms of scale and vision. He expands the size of the orchestra to incorporate the sounds swirling around, underlying, and depicting the arrival of Fate in a rhythm-driven, thematic symphony that takes Haydn's form and runs with it as though to the top of a mountain peak. This paper will analyze the symphonies by movement, according to form, size, structure, tonalities, melodies, orchestral sound and overall mood and effect.
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It had to be Juliek. He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence.” When Juliek was playing the violin, it was his hope or his life.
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