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When Bela Bartok died in September of 1945, he left a partially completed viola concerto commissioned by the virtuoso violist William Primrose. Yet, while no definitive version of the work exists, this concerto has become arguably the most-performed viola concerto in the world. The story of how the ...

When Bela Bartok died in September of 1945, he left a partially completed viola concerto commissioned by the virtuoso violist William Primrose. Yet, while no definitive version of the work exists, this concerto has become arguably the most-performed viola concerto in the world. The story of how the concerto came to be, from its commissioning by Primrose to its first performance to the several completions that are performed today is told here in Bartok's Viola Concerto:The Remarkable Story of His Swansong. After Bartok's death, his family asked the composer's friend Tibor Serly to look over the sketches of the concerto and to prepare it for publication. While a draft was ready, it took Serly years to assemble the sketches into a complete piece. In 1949, Primrose finally unveiled it, at a premiere performance with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. For almost half a century, the Serly version enjoyed great popularity among the viola community, even while it faced charges of inauthenticity. In the 1990s, several revisions appeared and, in 1995, the composer's son, Peter Bartok, released a revision, opening the way or an intensified debate on the authenticity of the multiple versions. This debate continues as violists and Bartok scholars seek the definitive version of this final work of Hungary's greatest composer. Bartok's Viola Concerto tells the story of the genesis and completion of Bartok's viola concerto, its reception over the second half of the twentieth century, its revisions, and future possibilities.

This compilation of essays spans a wide range of individual perspectives within the varied disciplines related to Bartók's life and work. The nineteen chapters together constitute a broad yet integrated picture of the Hungarian composer's contributions to twentieth-century music and scholarship ...

This compilation of essays spans a wide range of individual perspectives within the varied disciplines related to Bartók's life and work. The nineteen chapters together constitute a broad yet integrated picture of the Hungarian composer's contributions to twentieth-century music and scholarship. While self-contained, each chapter contributes to a larger scheme of interrelated subjects that provide a coherent view of the Bartók field. The book also contains integrative theoretic-analytical approaches to Bartók's musical language that demonstrate relations between the modalities and rhythms of folk music and his more abstract musical principles. Some chapters examine Bartók's folk-music materials in connection with his fieldwork, transcription techniques, classification methodology, and compositional influences. Other chapters explore Bartók's system of composition from its early stages to maturity by way of his abstract works and his folk-music transcriptions. The book also addresses the relevance of Bartók's work to broader historical, philosophical, and folkloristic, compositional, performance, and reception issues.

The first full-length study of Bartók's 1911 opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, this book is an authoritative study of one of the twentieth century's enduring operatic works. It adopts a broad approach to the study of opera by introducing, in addition to the expected music-dramatic analysis, topics of a ...

The first full-length study of Bartók's 1911 opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, this book is an authoritative study of one of the twentieth century's enduring operatic works. It adopts a broad approach to the study of opera by introducing, in addition to the expected music-dramatic analysis, topics of a more interdisciplinary nature that are new to the field of Bartók studies, including a detailed literary study of the libretto and a gender-focused analysis of the opera's female character, Judith.