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We recommend works to explore after Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra

A nother work by Bartók that highlights individual instruments within the context of an ensemble is 1936’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The opening movement may be marked Andante tranquillo but still has a distinctly sinister feel to it, as does the similarly slow-paced Adagio third. Elsewhere, we get an agitated Allegro, complete with dialogue between the timpani and lower strings, and a folky but somehow still fraught

Allegro molto finale. (Helsinki Po/susanna Mälkki BIS BIS2378).

To hear exactly what Bartók was lampooning in the Concerto for Orchestra’s ‘Intermezzo Interrotto’, head for Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony No. 7 of 1942. The offending march appears from around seven minutes into the opening movement, heard at first from plucked strings and pianissimo snare drum. It is then continuously repeated, Ravel Boléro-style, increasing in volume and orchestral heft as it goes. (Royal Liverpool Po/vasily Petrenko Naxos 8.573057).

In November 1954, Witold Lutosławski conducted the world premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra in

Warsaw – successfully so, though the composer himself would later show a certain indifference to the work. Scored for a large orchestra, it leans heavily on Polish folk music, incorporating a number of traditional melodies within its four movements, the last of which builds into an enormous, thrilling climax. (BBC So/edward Gardner Chandos CHSA 5082).

Thea Musgrave once explained that her Concerto for Orchestra of 1967 came from a dream in which a clarinettist stood up and led the orchestra in a mutiny. The clarinet’s wild solo in the fourth of the concerto’s five sections is, aptly, the pick of a work that showcases not just the instruments, but the Scottish composer’s skill in exploring their capabilities. (Scottish No/alexander Gibson Lyrita SRCD253).

Finally, to hear how Bartók inspired those around him, try the 1947 Concerto for Piano, Strings and Percussion by his fellow Hungarian Jenő Takács, in which the two solo protagonists join forces in a thrilling battle over three movements. (Aima Maria Labbra-makk (piano); Savaria SO, Tamás Pál Hungaroton HCD32278).

Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra builds to an enormous, thrilling climax