The Leading Classical Music Label Direct To You

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the CD BARTOK: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 and 3

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Music AND Flowers. The Perfect Gifts.

Spend $50 or more on NaxosDirect and we'll give you a $10 coupon for 1800Flowers.com family of stores. Offer ends Feb. 12th. Need suggestions? Click here

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Grammy Winners on Sale

Masters of American Music

Valentine�s Day Special

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD
        Pop/Rock Concert

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

BARTOK: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 and 3

Home

Classical Music

Concertos

View large image

Total playing time: 01:17:06

$8.99 (CD)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this CD Link to this page

Bela Bartok (1881 - 1945) Piano Concerto No.1 Piano Concerto No.2 Piano Concerto No.3 The Hungarian composer Bela Bartok was born in 1881 in an area that...

Read more about this recording

Bela Bartok (1881 - 1945)

Piano Concerto No.1

Piano Concerto No.2

Piano Concerto No.3

The Hungarian composer Bela Bartok 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 18891ed 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 Bartok passed his early adolescence, counting among his school- fellows the composer Erno Dohnanyi.

Offered the chance of musical training in Vienna, like Dohnanyi 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 Zoltan Kodaly, 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 Sayg�n.

As a composer Bartok 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 Bela Kun was replaced by the reactionary regime of Admirai 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 1940to emigrate to the United States of America

In his last years, after briefly held teaching appointments at Columbia and Harvard, Bartok 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. The years in America, whatever difficulties they brought, also gave rise to other important compositions, including the Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, a Sonata for Solo Violin for Vehudi Menuhin and, in the year before he left Hungary, Contrasts, for Szigeti and Benny Goodman.

Bartok's compositions for piano and orchestra include, in addition to the three concertos, a Rhapsody and a Scherzo. The first of the piano concertos was written in the summer and autumn of 1926 in Budapest and first performed at the ISCM Festival in Frankfurt the following July, with the composer as soloist and the conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. The style of piano-writing is generally percussive and there is a frequent use of dissonant intervals, leading a contemporary American critic to castigate the work as one of "unmitigated ugliness". This is hardly a judgement that would be echoed now, when the music of Bartok is better understood. Described by the composer as in E minor, the concerto may certainly be taken as centring on this tonality. The first movement is in broadly classical sonata-allegro form, with a first and second subject group forming the exposition, a central development section, beginning with the re-appearance of the principal theme, which is also heard transposed in the recapitulation section, which presents much of the material already used, but now modified. The movement moves forward to an exciting conclusion, propelled by the insistent motor rhythm inherent in the thematic material In the slow movement the composer gives meticulous instructions to the three percussion-players, manning timpani, bassdrum, snare drum, side drum without snare, triangle, suspended cymbals, to be placed immediately behind the piano.

The structure of the movement is tripartite, the third section a much modified return of the first. A rapider interlude leads to the finale, its first theme heard over the continuing impetus of an ostinato, as the movement, which includes rhythmic and thematic elements derived from the first movement, is impelled forward

The Second Piano Concerto was written between October 1930 and the autumn of 1931. It was first performed in Frankfurt in January 1933. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Han. Rosbaud, with the composer as soloist. There followed performances at the ISCM Festival in Amsterdam, in London, Strasbourg, Stockholm, Vienna, Winterthur and Z�rich, with a performance in Budapest in which Louis Kentner was the soloist. Of even more compelling energy than the earlier concerto, the new work is again in three movements, the third of which uses material from the first Bartok claimed that the concerto was in contrast to the fast with orchestral writing that was less demanding and with thematic material of more obvious attraction. The opening movement, without strings, has two broad subject groups, a central development and a recapitulation, including a piano cadenza It is tightly constructed, with sequential formations that suggest the Baroque concerto form. The second movement contains in itself both a slow movement and a scherzo. It is in ternary form, with a rapid central section, with the Adagio in the mood of night music that is so often a feature of Bartok's writing. Here the piano, accompanied by percussion, offers a form of meditative recitative, interrupted by a central bout of hyperactivity. Material from the first movement, rhythmically modified, with a new principal theme framing rondo episodes derived from the first movement.

The Third Piano Concerto was left unfinished at the time of Bartok's death in 1945 In his last weeks he worked simultaneously on the Viola Concerto commissioned by William Primrose and the Piano Concerto. The former work, he claimed, needed only to be written out in score, although a more complex task in fact remained for his friend and compatriot Tibor Serly, who reconstructed the Viola Concerto and completed the last seventeen bars of the Piano Concerto. The latter was first performed in February 1946 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the pianist Gyorgy Saandor.

It differs in many ways from the two earlier concertos, lacking much of that percussive writing and generally presenting music that is clearer in its appeal, with the piano very much more of a melodic than percussive instrument. The first movement has a first subject of Hungarian or Romanian flavour. The nature of the thematic material is revealed in the central development. The second movement marked Adagio religioso, opens with a chorale-like theme and there is an evocative central night-music section, with answering bird-calls, before the woodwind bring back the chorale, to which the piano has its own additions to make. The last movement is broadly in rondo form, its characteristic principal theme re-appearing to frame contrasting episodes of continued contrapuntal ingenuity, now in the musical language of great clarity that characterizes the Concerto for Orchestra.

Jeno Jando

The Hungarian pianist Jeno Jando has won a number of piano competitions in Hungary and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours and a first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977. He has recorded for Naxos all the piano concertos and sonatas of Mozart Other recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos of Grieg and Schumann as well as Rachmaninov's Second Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody and Beethoven's complete piano sonatas.

Budapest symphony Orchestra

The Budapest symphony Orchestra, part of the Hungarian Television and Broadcasting Organisation, was established after the second World War and under its Principal Conductor Gyorgy Lehel has won some distinction. Through its frequent broadcasts and its recordings it has become widely known, and its tours have taken it to the countries of Eastern and Western Europe as well as to the United States of America and Canada. The orchestra has worked with some of the most distinguished conductors and soloists of our time.

Andras Ligeti

Andras Ligeti has been a conductor with the Budapest symphony Orchestra since 1985 Born in Pecs in 1953, he went on to study the violin at the Ferenc Liszt Music school in Budapest, taking his Artist's Diploma in 1976. From that date until 1980 he was leader of the orchestra of the Hungarian state Opera and appeared as soloist in a number of European countries, as well as in Canada. He was a member of the �der Quartet and leader of the Jeunesse Chamber Ensemble.

In 1980 he won first prize in the Bloomington sonata Competition, and during the 1980 - 1981 season worked under Sir Georg Solti and as a pupil of Karl �sterreicher in Vienna. Until his appointment to the Radio Orchestra Ligeti was a conductor with the state Opera. He has directed performances of a number of contemporary works, in addition to his experience with the repertoire of the opera house and his varied career as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral conductor.

Disc 1

Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz 83

(more info)

Performed by: Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Bela Bartok
Conducted by: Andras Ligeti
Jeno Jando, piano
Recording date: 14-18 February 1994
Produced by: Toth, Ibolya

I. Allegro moderato - 9:05
II. Andante - 8:21
III. Allegro molto - 7:14

Piano Concerto No. 2, Sz 95

(more info)

Performed by: Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Bela Bartok
Conducted by: Andras Ligeti
Jeno Jando, piano
Recording date: 14-18 February 1994
Produced by: Toth, Ibolya

I. Allegro - 10:08
II. Adagio - Piu adagio - Presto - 12:23
III. Allegro molto - 6:28

Piano Concerto No. 3, Sz 119

(more info)

Performed by: Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Bela Bartok
Conducted by: Andras Ligeti
Jeno Jando, piano
Recording date: 14-18 February 1994
Produced by: Toth, Ibolya

I. Allegretto - 7:34
II. Adagio religioso - 9:27
III. Allegro vivace - 6:26

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Bartok, Bela

Conductor(s):
Ligeti, Andras

Orchestra(s):
Budapest Symphony Orchestra

Artist(s):
Jando, Jeno

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 730099577120
Item Number: 8550771
Release Date: Aug 8, 1994