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Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Concerto for Orchestra • Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was born in 1881 in an area that now forms part of Romania. His father, director of an agricultural college, was a keen amateur musician, while it was from his mother that he received his early piano lessons. The death of his father in 1889 led to a less settled existence, as his mother resumed work as a teacher, eventually settling in the Slovak capital of Bratislava (the Hungarian Pozsony), where Bartók passed his early adolescence, counting among his schoolmates the composer Ernö Dohnányi. Offered the chance of musical training in Vienna, like Dohnányi he chose instead Budapest, where he won a considerable reputation as a pianist, being appointed to the teaching staff of the Academy of Music in 1907. At the same time he developed a deep interest, shared with his compatriot Zoltán Kodály, in the folk music of his own and adjacent countries, later extended as far as Anatolia, where he collaborated in research with the Turkish composer Adnan Saygun. BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta As a composer Bartók found acceptance much more difficult, particularly in his own country, which was, in any case, beset by political troubles, when the brief post-war left-wing government of Béla Kun was replaced by the reactionary régime of Admiral Horthy. Meanwhile his reputation abroad grew, particularly among those with an interest in contemporary music, and his success both as a pianist and as a composer, coupled with dissatisfaction at the growing association between the Horthy government and National Socialist Germany, led him in 1940 to emigrate to the United States. In his last years, after briefly-held teaching appointments at Columbia and Harvard, Bartók suffered from increasing ill health, and from poverty which the conditions of exile in war time could do nothing to alleviate. He died in straitened circumstances in 1945, leaving a new Viola Concerto incomplete and a Third Piano Concerto more nearly finished. –2– The Concerto for Orchestra is among the composer’s last works. It was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1943 in memory of the distinguished conductor Sergey Koussevitzky’s wife Natalie and received its first performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Koussevitzky in December 1944. The work displays the virtuoso talents of different sections of the orchestra, using devices of textural and dynamic contrast, thus justifying its title. Bartók himself wrote of the gradual transition of the work from the severity of the first movement, to the third, with its song of death and to the finale with its reassertion of life. The second movement varies this progress by treating pairs of instruments in different harmonic intervals, a light-hearted interlude. Contrapuntal possibilities are explored in the first movement, while the third has the air of a folk song, coupled with the mood of night music that was part of the composer’s musical language. A fragment of the Seventh Symphony of Shostakovich interrupts the Intermezzo, by way of parody, while the last movement contrasts the perpetual motion of the violins with a fugal subject. Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta was written in 1936, commissioned by Paul Sacher, founder and conductor of the Basle Chamber Orchestra, whose patronage has been so important in music of the twentieth century. It was first performed by the orchestra under its conductor in Basle on 21st January 1937. The work is scored for two groups of strings ranged either side of percussion instruments that include side drum, snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam, bass drum, timpani and xylophone, with celesta, harp and piano. The first of the four movements is opened by muted violas with a slow chromatic melody, imitated by the violins on the right of the conductor and then by both groups of cellos, followed by an upper violin part. Each entry is on alternate upper or lower notes of the circle of fifths, a further example of the meticulous symmetry of the work that has led to plausible theories of mathematical analysis, for which there seems considerable justification. Here the successive entries lead to a central entry on E flat, the climax of the movement, after which the process is reversed. The second BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta –3– movement, thematically related to the seminal first movement theme, contrasts the two string groups in its opening and is broadly in sonata form, with exposition, development and final recapitulation. The Adagio, another example of the composer’s night music mood, opens with xylophone and timpani, joined by tremolo cellos and double basses, through the sound of which the first viola melody emerges. The movement is constructed sectionally, each of the six sections in complex relationship with each other and with the motifs that make up the opening theme of the whole work. The final movement, in form essentially a rondo, introduced by two clear notes from the timpani, continues with a pattern of pizzicato string chords, arpeggiated downwards, against which the second group of strings introduce a Bulgarian folk dance rhythm with a melody derived from the opening theme, here presented in ternary form. The movement ends stridently enough, reaching a final consonant A major chord. BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta Keith Anderson –4– Baltimore Symphony Orchestra The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is internationally recognized as having achieved a preeminent place among the world’s most important orchestras. Acclaimed for its pursuit of artistic excellence, the BSO has attracted a devoted national and international following while maintaining deep bonds throughout Maryland with innovative education and community outreach initiatives. The BSO made musical history in September 2007, when Marin Alsop led her inaugural concerts as the Orchestra’s twelfth music director, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra. The BSO has achieved critical acclaim for its recording albums. In August 2009 the orchestra and Marin Alsop released Bernstein’s Mass, which rose to number six on the Classical Billboard Charts and received a 2009 GRAMMY® nomination for Best Classical Album. For more than eighty years, the BSO has maintained a vibrant educational presence throughout Maryland. The 20122013 season marks the fifth year of OrchKids, a year-round program that provides music education to Baltimore’s neediest youngsters at no cost. In addition to the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where the orchestra has performed for 29 years, the BSO is a founding partner and the resident orchestra at the Music Center at Strathmore, just outside of Washington, D.C. With its opening in February 2005, the BSO became the nation’s only major orchestra with year-round venues in two metropolitan areas. BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta –5– Marin Alsop Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the twelfth music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008, and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. Her most recent appointment as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), starting in 2012, marks another historic appointment for her. In 2005, Marin Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007 she was honoured with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her Conductor of the Year. In November 2010 she was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Marin Alsop is a frequent guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world, including the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Concertbegouw Orchestra, the Orchestra of La Scala, the Tonhalle Orchestra and many others. In addition to her performance activities, she is an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms, Barber and Dvořák. BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta –6– THE 2xHD MASTERING PROCESS This album was mastered using our 2xHD proprietary system. In order to achieve the most accurate reproduction of the original recording we tailor our process specifically for each project, using a selection from our pool of state-of-the-art audiophile components and connectors. The process begins with a transfer to analog from the original 24bits/96kHz, or 88.2 kHz resolution master, using cutting edge D/A converters. The analog signal is then sent through a hi-end tube pre-amplifier and (if needed) will be EQ’d before being recorded directly in DXD using the dCS905 A/D and the dCS Vivaldi Clock. All connections used in the process are made of OCC silver cable. DSD and 192kHz/24Bit versions are separately generated, directly from the analog signal. 2xHD was created by producer/studio owner André Perry and audiophile sound engineer René Laflamme. www.2xHD.com Feel the warmth BARTÓK: Concert for Orchestra Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta 2xHD Mastering: René Laflamme 2xHD Executive Producer: André Perry www.2xhd.com www.naxos.com