Bartok Violin Concerto No. 2

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

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with, Stefi Geyer, but Geyer refused both Bartok’s advances and the concerto itself, and so it remained unperformed and unpublished until after Bartok’s death.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.