Allegro Barbaro
November 18, 2014
The music of Béla Bartók is a huge influence on my musical identity. It began in college, but strangely enough, my first exposure to Bartók was not in music school. I can remember clearly the first time I heard the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. There was still a classical music station on FM radio in Detroit, and I was driving and listening to a live concert rebroadcast of an orchestra concert. A Concerto is a piece for a solo instrument and orchestra. I was puzzled by what a “Concerto” for a whole orchestra was going to sound like.
I was mesmerized by the opening of the work, introducing some of the musical material that was going to build the piece. By about the two minutes and forty-five second mark, when the violin sections come screaming in, I was hooked. I pulled into a parking space and listened to the…
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