Violin Concerto No. 1

Quick Facts

• Written between 1907-08; premiered posthumously in 1958 in Basel, Switzerland, with violinist Hans-Heinz Schneeberger
• Dedicated to violinist Stefi Geyer (more about this relationship below)
• Organization – the piece is written in two movements rather than the stand three for most concerti¹

About the Piece

• Bartók wrote his first violin concerto as a character portrait for violinist Stefi Geyer, with whom the composer was deeply infatuated. Unfortunately for Bartók, Geyer terminated their relationship shortly after he finished the piece and refused to play it. Consequently, the work was left unnoticed until after the composer’s death – it was finally published in 1956 and premiered two years later.
  • The first movement depicts “idealized Stefi Geyer, celestial and inward,” and the second depicts the musician as “cheerful, witty, amusing.”
  • While this piece was locked away after Geyer’s rejection of Bartók, the composer recycled the first movement for Two Portraits (Két portré), Op. 5.
• Listen for – The first movement of the piece contains the “Stefi (or ‘Geyer’) motif,” which is an ascending line of thirds.²
• In a letter to Geyer, Bartók wrote:

“I finished the score of the violin concerto on the 5th of February, the very day you were writing my death sentence… I locked it in my desk, I don’t know whether to destroy it or to keep it locked away until it is found after I die and the whole pile of papers, my declaration of love, your concerto, my best work are thrown out.”³  

1. Malcolm Gillies, “Bartók, Béla,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed May 30, 2023,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040686.
2. Ibid.
3. Georg Predota, “A musical portrait of unrequited love,” Interlude (2015), accessed May 30, 2023, https://interlude.hk/musical-portrait-unrequited-love/.