你好It’s possible that had it not been for the Nazis, Bela Bartók, one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century might have remained little more than a Hungarian historical footnote. He was strongly opposed to the Nazis. After they came into power in Germany, he refused to give concerts there and switched away from his German publisher. His liberal views (as evident in the opera Bluebeard's Castle and the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin) caused him a great deal of trouble from right-wingers in Hungary.

Having first sent his manuscripts out of the country, Bartók reluctantly moved with his second wife and former student, Ditta Pásztory. His son from his second marriage, Péter Bartók joined them in 1942.

Many musicians and composers who fled to the U.S. because of the Nazis and the outbreak of World War II, settled and flourished, but there were plenty who didn’t. Bela Bartok was one who came reluctantly and regarded it as a forced and uncomfortable exile from Hungary, the source of his creativity. As a result Bartók found it very difficult to write. He was also not very well known in America, and there was little interest in his music. He and his wife Ditta would give concerts, and for a while, they had a research grant to work on a collection of Yugoslav folk songs. However, their finances were always precarious.

Also, Bartók's health was increasingly uncertain, and his finances were in bad shape. Friends offered to help him out with money, but he always refused to take it. Finally Fritz Reiner and a group of friends secretly got together and convinced Serge Koussevitsky to donate money from his Koussevitsky foundation and commission Bartok to write an orchestral piece. The story goes that Koussevitsky donned a dramatic cape for the visit. He made Bartok the offer, Bartok refused it and at which point Kousevitsky handed the composer the check and told him that his refusal had been made in vain. Koussevitsky’s Boston Symphony needed a piece and Bartok was the man to write it. Shortly after the Concerto for Orchestra was born.

This quickly became Bartók's most popular work, and one which would ease his financial burdens. Its premiere opened everyone’s ears: as a result Bartok was commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin to write a Sonata for Solo Violin. This seemed to reawaken his interest in composing, and he went on to write his Piano Concerto No. 3, an airy and almost neo-classical work, and begin work on his Viola Concerto.

Béla Bartók died in New York from leukemia in September, 1945. He left his final composition, a viola concerto unfinished at his death; it was later completed by a pupil.

What’s in our player now: Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, Cond. - Decca Legends 289 467 686

This is the closest Bartok ever came to writing a full-fledged symphony, from the very first notes, you sense that this is a very special piece. All the orchestral colors are highlighted. The first moment is abstract and yet at the same time enormously powerful; the second is a playful “”Game of Pairs”, the third movement is an elegy for Bartok’s severed Hungarian roots, and the last movement is a pot-shot at Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony – which Bartok hated - and the finale is a joyous amalgam of Hungarian folk-like folk tunes and dances.

Solti is a uniquely authoritative Bartok conductor; he studied under Bartok at the conservatory in Hungary. His pacing is poised and unmistakably on the money, and the London Symphony Orchestra in this recording is refined and brilliant. But many feel that another of Bartok’s students and a champion of his music, Fritz Reiner’s version with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (RCA Victor Living Stereo 09026-65104-2), is more spectacular sound-wise, if a little too steel-like. In fact, it's been said about the Chicago Symphony under Reiner that if Genghis Khan had had an orchestra, it would sound like this. But listen to it and see what you think.