Concerto for Orchestra, BB 123

• This work was commissioned in May of 1943 by the Koussevitsky Music Foundation.¹
• This piece premiered in Boston on December 1, 1944, and its public success was immediate.²

“The title of this symphony-like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat the single instruments or instrument groups in a concertant or soloist manner.”

Béla Bartók, “Explanation to Concerto for Orchestra” (written for the premiere of Concerto for Orchestra at Boston Symphony Hall on Dec. 1, 1944)³

“The general mood of the work represents–apart from the jesting second movement–a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.”

Béla Bartók, “Explanation to Concerto for Orchestra” (written for the premiere of Concerto for Orchestra at Boston Symphony Hall on Dec. 1, 1944)⁴

1.  Malcolm Gillies, “Bartók, Béla,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed January 12, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040686.
2. Ibid.
3. Quoted in Benjamin Suchoff, Béla Bartók: A Celebration (Lanham, Maryland: Scarcrow Press, 2004), 8.
4. Ibid.