Discover one of Béla Bartók's last works: his Concerto for Orchestra, composed in 1943, while the Hungarian master was in exile in the United States. During this period, Bartók faced financial difficulties, but he turned down offers of assistance. To help him, the Society of American Authors commissioned him to write a work. Bartók accepted and thus composed his marvelous Concerto for Orchestra, a work that broke with the usual concerto tradition by individually highlighting different orchestral instruments instead of one solo instrument. The result? A virtuosic work, both immense and imposing, featuring five moments which allow different orchestral instruments to demonstrate their full capacities.
Browse recordings of Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116
Listen to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 streaming on medici.tv!
medici.tv is the best online platform for streaming Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra live, on replay or VOD, offering you a virtual VIP ticket to the most exciting productions with the world’s best artists and orchestras captured in HD video. Bartók wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in 1943. In 1940, Béla Bartók left his native Hungary to escape Nazism. He moved to the United States, where he was not happy: he did not like the country and missed his beloved Hungary terribly. Additionally, he was faced with great financial difficulties. Bartók refused any form of financial support that looked like a handout, so American artists came to his aid by commissioning him. Bartók composed his Concerto for Orchestra on commission from conductor Serge Koussevitzky.
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A selection of our programs is available for free for all registered users and the rest can be unlocked with a subscription, including Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Live videos, replays or VOD, stream right to your living room from the most renowned concert halls in the world, and you can watch our concerts on your biggest screens with AirPlay, Chromecast, and our new Roku app. No matter where you are in the world, you’ll be able to discover the most beautiful compositions of Bartók’s, including his Concerto for Orchestra, performed by some of the best soloists and orchestras in the world: the Orchestre de Paris with Karina Canellakis, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal with Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in its final concert with Mariss Jansons.
The greatest artists of our time perform Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 on medici.tv, the best classical streaming platform
Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was premiered in 1943 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Traditionally, the concerto form involves a solo instrument, enhanced by the accompaniment of an orchestra. In his Concerto for Orchestra, Bartók breaks with this tradition and makes the orchestra the star of the work, almost inventing a new genre! Concertos for Orcehstra had been composed before, the first being a work by Paul Hindemith, composed in 1925, but Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra is by far the best known. This concerto for orchestra gives each section of the orchestra the opportunity to demonstrate its virtuosity in pages written especially for them, as if each section in turn were the solo instrument. Discover this masterpiece on medici.tv!