Béla Bartók, Piano Concerto No 1, with Yuja Wang

Recognized as a remarkable pianist as well as composer, the Hungarian Béla Bartók composed three concertos for piano and orchestra during his lifetime. The first one was written between August and November 1926 and premiered in Frankfurt on July 1, 1927, with the composer as the soloist.

With Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra, Bartók intended to showcase his mastery as a composer as well as his skills as a virtuoso pianist. And he did just that. The work features great technical difficulties not only for the pianist but also a challenge for the orchestra... and the audience. In Bartók's own words:

"My first concerto [...] I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and the public."

A new language
Bartók thus initiated the exploration of a new language, dressing the piano in the garb of percussion instruments. Considered the apotheosis of the cluster (a cluster of adjacent notes played simultaneously) and dissonant counterpoint, the work received a lukewarm response in Germany, which was nevertheless not unaware of its agitated syncopation, its fiery percussion and "primitive" rhythm reminiscent of Stravinsky.

Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945)

In the US
Enthusiastic, the author soon set off on a tour of the United States. But the American critics didn't like the concert at all (neither, we suppose, did the public). One bloodthirsty critic even wrote that he had just heard... "one of the most appalling avalanches of bombastic nonsense and blunders ever perpetrated before an audience."

Pure bravura
But none of this bothered Bartók. What's more, the composer would not give up the new style. Nevertheless, due in part to its enormous difficulties, Concerto No. 1 has remained the least attended and listened to of the three he composed. And the truth is that the effort is worth it. And well worth it. It is pure concentrated bravura.

Movements

00:00  Allegro moderato - Allegro: Intense but calm beginning with the orchestra in the lower registers, the piano makes its entrance without greater virtuoso demand, attacking a single note, which then goes in octaves, for greater percussive emphasis. Soon, glissandos and dissonances follow. The movement ends with a sort of orchestral whiplash.

10:00  Andante - attacca (attacca: indicates that there is no pause between the second and third movements): Desolation best describes this section, perhaps because the strings are not involved. At times, the piano only accompanies the percussion.

18:08  Allegro molto: It is initiated by drums and trombone glissandos. The piano joins in instantly with its own extended glissando and then becomes a percussion instrument. Or almost, for there are clusters everywhere (for example min 21:25), three-octave glissandos (min 24:24), and jumps at incredible speeds. All this, in permanent syncopation with the orchestra. The movement ends abruptly as if the sound mass had crashed against a wall.

The performance is by Yuja Wang, superb, at the piano. The outstanding artist is accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

The concert lasts 25 minutes. The rest is applause, in fruitless expectation that the charming Miss Wang would give an encore, which she did not do, presumably because in the piano literature there is no short piece that after this performance would not be a nonsense purpose.