Though a number of works bearing the seemingly contradictory title, Concerto for Orchestra, have now been written, when we say THE Concerto for Orchestra, we mean only one—the one that started it all—that of Béla Bartók.
The last years in the life of the 20th Century musical giant, Béla Bartók, where not kind to the composer. As World War II raged, he found himself living in exile in America—homesick for his native Hungary, his music largely forgotten, struggling to make ends meet and, as if that weren't enough, dying of what would later be diagnosed as leukemia. His friend, the great conductor Serge Koussevitsky, would visit Bartók in the hospital, and asked the great composer if he were up to writing a new work for his orchestra, the Boston Symphony, to perform. Koussevitsky's intention, without saying so, was intended to help pay Bartók's mounting hospital bills. The proud composer, however, fearing he might not live to finish the commission, refused any money up front. The wily Koussevitsky, however, thinking on his feet, countered that the Foundation stipulated half of the payment up front, and the second half upon completion, which was acceptable to Bartók, who not only lived to complete the project, but rallied in both health and creative vigor, buoyed by the new creative challenge to creative one of his greatest, and most life-affirming masterworks, and, indeed, one of the great works to showcase the orchestra in all of music. We'll hear the Concerto for Orchestra on the 81st anniversary of its premiere—and much more—on Monday afternoon's Classical Music with Foley Schuler.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday afternoon on Blue Lake Public Radio.
