Bartók’s Farewell Love Letter from New York City: Piano Concerto No. 3

by Michael Rosin

 

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IMG_7232        The music of Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945) is usually immediately recognizable. He was a distinct original, but what I find baffling is how difficult it is to describe exactly what made him such an original.
His legacy, like many composers, lives mostly in what the vox populi has deemed as his “greatest hits:” Concerto for Orchestra, Music for and Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the String Quartets, to name a few; these are masterpieces, to be sure. However, there are other secret gems that expose a more gentle, unexplored area of the composer. I’d like to focus on at least one of those compositions for this article—his last (practically) completed work, written in New York City, 1945: The Third Piano Concerto.
This piece has a poignant history and was conceived from a place full of warmth and sadness in Bartók’s life. A gift to his second wife, Ditta, who was a pianist, the work has an expressive level all to itself on the shelves of Bartók’s output. It is tough to consider this work related to its older siblings, the first and second piano concerti, on account of its entirely different approach. Innocent harmonies abound this piece perhaps more than any other by the composer.
The work opens with a Chopinesque Piano Concerto gesture: unison octaves in the solo piano part with an orchestral “propeller” underneath (A closer listen: there’s even a good old-fashioned “V-I” in the timpani part! Key of E):

Innocence, even charm, abound in this music. There are Bartókian folk contours to the melody, yes, but the jagged edges are sanded down.

It is the second movement that leaves even the romantics speechless; a loving gesture for his wife. The opening is very resemblant of a canon or ricercar (a compositional procedure that dates back to the Renaissance Era), as the well-behaved strings echo fugal stretto-like lines of music, which are politely responded by solo piano utterances. Have a listen—it rivals a Mahler slow movement (The video should start at the 2nd movement. If it does not, the 2nd movement starts from 7:22):

Bartok composed this?! Yes, our beloved Béla Bartók. The piano part is more “song-like” than some pop songs.

The third and final movement reclaims Bartók’s harmonic edge, and is the the most affirmative of the three movements. At this point it must be said (written rather)—it is hard to deny American influences in this piece. He had been living in New York City for five years when he wrote it, and American sounds—both from American contemporaries and even Jazz—mayhave found their way into the score. This influence notwithstanding, I must recognize an all-too-common tendency to label an emigrant composers’ music in America to be influenced by “jazz.” As Americans that is understandably our immediate thought, of course—we are surrounded by it. But I encourage to keep in mind the origins of style, context of the time period, and remember that there is usually a trail one can follow in both directions. Nonetheless, here is a passage with a tune that really slams the “blue” note, practically Harlem Renaissance style (The video should start at the appropriate time. If it does not, the section starts from 21:56):

   Bartók left the work just a few measures shy of complete, in 1945, right before his death. For our purposes—and admittedly in my romantic vision—we’ll consider it his last complete work. Throughout this piece, the piano seems to co-exist with the orchestra, rather than take the lead the way a soloist would in a concerto. When we reach the conclusion, though content, the music we’ve traversed never relinquishes its “farewell” element. In a world that just saw the end of the Second World War, from a man completely aware of his declining health, a piece of music was born that is resigned to its own fate.
Although not typical Bartók, I believe this concerto to be one of his most honest works. It was written on pure impulse—there was no commission behind it unlike other works at the time. It was wholly for the love of his life, his final gift to her, as the poor composer knew he was dying. Bartók sorrowfully adorned the score with the word “vége” (Hungarian for “the end”) after the last written note, bringing a chilling identity and self-awareness to this iron noir beauty.

Selected favorite quotes:

“This essentially serene work is one of Bartók’s most expressive compositions. It shows a marked trend toward both structural lucidity and total clarity…If the concerto seems weaker than its predecessors, it is only because of its great refinement of idiom.”– “Music for Piano and Orchestra: An Annotated Guide” by Maurice Hinson, p. 24

“As Bartók began the Viola Concerto, he nurtured another plan, not on commission, but for love: a piano concerto for Ditta. It was to be a surprise present for forty-second birthday on 31 October 1945… He had been taken to the West Side Hospital on 22nd September; until the evening before, he had worked desperately to complete his labor of love, the concerto for Ditta, and he had in fact achieved all but the last seventeen bars of orchestration.”– “The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide” by Michael Steinberg, p. 43

Recommended Recordings:

  • Martha Argerich, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Warner Classics (1998) available on iTunes and Amazon.
  • Géza Anda, Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Grammophon, (1959) available on iTunes and Amazon (this is a classic).

 Works Cited, Research, and Recommended Further Study:

  • “The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide” by Michael Steinberg • Published by Oxford University Press, 1998
  • “Music for Piano and Orchestra: An Annotated Guide” by Maurice Hinson • Published by Indiana University Press, 1981, 1993
  • Piano Concerto No. 3 in E major, Sz. 119, BB 127 by Béla Bartók •Study Score, published by Boosey & Hawkes (Revised edition, 1994)
  • Piano Concerto No. 3 by Béla Bartók • Géza Anda, piano • Ferenc Fricsay and the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin • Label: Deutsche Grammophon, 1959 (Audio CD, 1996)
  • Martha Argerich, Prokofiev Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3, Bartók Piano Concerto No. 3 • Martha Argerich, piano • Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal • Label: Warner Classics, 1998
  • “Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3: Cosmopolitans of the Hungarian music life: Annie Fischer” • Hollerung Gábor, karmester • https://hollerung.hu/en/bartok-piano-concerto-no-3/
*This article follows fair use practices (commentary, criticism, scholarship, and/or research) of copyrighted material. All writing and synthesis of ideas are my own.
*This post is based on an article I wrote for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for their performances of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, on Nov. 2-5, 2017. The NJSO owns the copyright to that original post, which can be found here.