Progetto Martha Argerich

italiano

Works

Béla Bartok

Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra Sz 119

 

Bartók wrote the Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra in 1945, the last year of his life; in fact, it is an unfinished work, because in the autograph score the last seventeen bars of orchestration are missing. Unlike its two predecessors, this concerto was not meant to be played by Bartók himself but rather by his wife, Ditta Pasztory, who was also a fine pianist but was much less inclined than her husband to play works as aggressively percussive as the first two concertos. In this composition, and especially in the magnificent middle movement, one can hear all the elements that most typified Bartók’s late style, which is characterised by melancholy looking backward and sorrowful, disconsolate distance-taking from worldly things. Once the orchestration had been completed by Tibór Sérly, a student of the composer, the Concerto No. 3 was given its world premiere in Philadelphia on 8 February 1946. Born in Reval (Estonia) Lopatnikoff studied musical composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. During the Revolution of 1917 he moved to Helsinki, where he continued his studies at the Finnish Conservatory and then in Karlsruhe with Ernst Toch. He lived in Berlin until the advent of the Nazi regime in 1933. He then emigrated to London and, subsequently, in 1939, to the USA. He was a talented pianist and began his career as both performer and composer by writing concertos for himself to play.

1. Allegretto
2. Adagio religioso
3. Allegro vivace

Performers

Performance