Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra & Viola Concerto

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Release Date: 6th Oct 2023
Catalogue No: ALPHA1013
Label: Alpha
Length: 61 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

Critics' Choice 2023

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Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, BB 123, Sz.116

Work length38:12

$6.50

$9.90

$13.25

Orchestre National de Lille
Alexandre Bloch

I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo

Track length10:24

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

II. Presentando le coppie. Allegro scherzando

Track length6:24

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

III. Elegia. Andante non troppo

Track length7:14

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

IV. Intermezzo Interrotto. Allegretto

Track length4:27

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

V. Finale. Pesante-Presto

Track length9:43

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

Bartók: Viola Concerto, BB 128, Sz. 120

Work length23:14

$4.05

$6.05

$8.15

Amihai Grosz (viola)
Orchestre National de Lille
Alexandre Bloch

I. Moderato

Track length14:04

$2.05

$3.05

$4.05

II. Adagio religioso

Track length4:42

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

III. Allegro vivace

Track length4:28

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

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About

Exiled in the United States since October 1940, Bela Bartok was short of money and worn out by leukaemia. Nevertheless, a few weeks' respite from the disease in August 1943 enabled him to fulfil a commission from the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. For a fee of a thousand dollars, he quickly wrote the Concerto for Orchestra, which was to be premiered at Boston's Symphony Hall on 1 December 1944. Koussevitzky was very enthusiastic about the Concerto, even describing it as 'the best orchestra piece of the last 25 years'. It was the success of this score that prompted the violist William Primrose to ask the Hungarian composer to write a work for him. Bartok had little experience of the instrument and was only convinced when he heard the soloist perform the Walton Concerto on the radio. The score was initially planned in four movements, but the composer's death reduced it to three. Amihai Grosz (a founder member of the Jerusalem Quartet, now principal viola of the Berliner Philharmoniker) joins the Orchestre National de Lille and Alexandre Bloch for this recording.

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra & Viola Concerto

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