Bartók Concerto For Orchestra - Fritz Reiner Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Reiner had a special relationship with Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra that makes his interpretation extremely authoritative. Bartok and his wife immigrated to the U.S. from their native Hungary in 1940, as Hitler was becoming more powerful, and their years in the U.S. until the composer’s death from leukemia in September 1945 were fraught with difficulty. In 1943, Reiner and his fellow Hungarian countryman Joseph Szigeti sought to help Bartok by encouraging the Koussevitzky Foundation, run by Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony, to commission a major work from the composer. Bartok, suffering bouts of ill health from his then-undiagnosed illness, accepted the commission and composed the piece between August and October 1944. Koussevitzky conducted its successful premiere in Boston on December 1, 1944. In February 1945, Bartok made a few revisions, including an expansion of the ending of the fifth movement, and this revised version is what is heard in this recording and is the standard version performed today.

 The piece was an immediate success, and between 1944 and 1955, when this recording was made, it was given more than 200 performances. It has remained one of Bartok’s most popular compositions. Sadly, Bartok composed only a few more works before he succumbed to his illness. These include his Sonata for Solo Violin and his Third Piano Concerto.

  The Concerto does not feature a solo instrument but rather features virtuosic playing by the entire orchestra, hence its title. In many ways, Reiner’s early stereo recording for RCA, made with his Chicago Symphony Orchestra on October 22, 1955, has remained the touchstone. Its sense of fantasy and the logic and rightness of its phrasing demonstrate Reiner’s complete identification with the work that he helped to create. The details of this classic recording can be appreciated as never before in HDTT’s high-resolution transfer and restoration from an excellent tape copy of the production master tape. The clarity and brilliance of its Living Stereo sonics remain impressive today, almost 70 years later.