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These pages contain program notes written for Redwood
Symphony. You are free to use the information in your own program
notes. If you quote me directly, please attribute it. Thanks!
These notes were edited, amended, and otherwise
improved by Eric Kujawsky, Peter Stahl, and Doug Wyatt.
Barbara Heninger
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Béla Bartók
Rhapsody No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra
Like Dvorák, Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was known for championing folk
music. Soon after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest in
1903, he and composer Zoltán Kodály traveled through Hungary and neighboring
countries collecting and recording folk songs. These themes found their way into
his compositions, especially in his works' surprising modalities and intricate,
sometimes fierce rhythms.
Bartók's first musical training, at age five, was on the piano, and he kept
a lifelong love for this instrument. His best-known works for piano are probably
the 153 pieces of the Mikrokosmos (1926-1939), originally intended as
progressive keyboard exercises for his son. He wrote the Rhapsodies 1 and 2 for
violin and piano in 1928. However, he soon wrote orchestral versions of both, as
well as versions for cello and piano. He dedicated the Rhapsody for Violin No. 2
to violinist Zoltán Székely, a student of Kodály who often performed with
Bartók in concert, and the two of them premiered the chamber version in
Amsterdam in November, 1928. Pierre Monteaux led the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
Orchestra in the premiere of the orchestral version in January, 1932.
The scoring of the orchestral version softens some of the "spikier"
moments in the original piano, and adds more color to the accompaniment
underneath the solo. Nine distinct folk melodies from Rumania, Hungary, and
Ruthenia are featured in the two movements. These movements are based on the
form of the Hungarian national dance, the czardas, which alternates at a signal
from the soloist from a slow section, Lassú, to a fast section, the Friss. The
slower first movement features an exotic theme in the solo violin over
serpentine patterns in the woodwinds. The vigorous second movement is a virtual
showcase of ethnic dances, each one seeming more lively or intricate than the
previous, and ends with a grand flourish.
June 10, 2007
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