Bartok in Minneapolis

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1949, Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis was the venue for the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók’s last orchestral piece: his Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. The soloist was William Primrose, who had commissioned the work, with the Hungarian-born conductor Antal Dorati leading the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Bartók had died in 1945, leaving extensive but incomplete sketches for the concerto he was writing for Primrose. After his death, the Viola Concerto was completed and orchestrated by his friend and fellow Hungarian, Tibor Sérly, who had also put the finishing touches on Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which also premiered posthumously.

The 1949 premiere of the Viola Concerto in Minneapolis attracted worldwide attention. To the surprise of some, it also went over very well with its first-night audience at Northrop Auditorium.

At the dress rehearsal, Dorati had predicted as much: “This is one time the audience need have no qualms about the word ‘contemporary’ as applied to the music it’s about to hear.” Dorati’s view was that the public was finally catching up with Bartók's highly original idiom. “It’s not a case of a composer becoming famous because he is dead,” Dorati said. “It is true there has been a great surge of performances of Bartók’s music since his death, but that is because the public was ready to hear his music.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Béla Bartók (1881-1945): Viola Concerto (completed by Tibor Serly); Hong-Mei Xiao, viola; Budapest Philharmonic; Janos Kovacs, conductor; Naxos 8.554183

On This Day

Births

• 1866 - American baritone and composer Henry Thacker Burleigh, in Stamford, Connecticut

• 1879 - Bohemian-born American operetta composer Rudolf Friml, in Prague

Deaths

• 1916 - Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti, 70, in Rome

• 1931 - French composer Vincent d’Indy, 80, in Paris

• 1990 - American composer Aaron Copland, 90, in North Tarrytown, New York

Premieres

• 1729 - Handel: opera Lotario, in London at the King's Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: Dec. 13)

• 1840 - Donizetti: opera La Favorite, at the Paris Opéra

• 1883 - Brahms: Symphony No. 3, with Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Hans Richter. The composer and pianist Ignaz Brüll had performed a two-piano arrangement of this symphony the previous month at two private events for friends (including possibly the Viennese music critic, Eduard Hanslick).

• 1886 - Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 2, in Vienna

• 1877 - Saint-Saëns: opera Samson et Dalila (in German), in Weimar at the Hoftheater

• 1900 - Rachmaninoff: second and third movements only of Piano Concerto No. 2 (Gregorian date: Dec. 15)

• 1901 - Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata, in Moscow, by cellist Anatoly Brandukov, with the composer at the piano (Gregorian date: Dec. 15)

• 1924 - Sigmund Romberg: The Student Prince, in New York City

• 1928 - Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 3, in Vienna

• 1928 - Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, in Berlin

• 1946 - Milhaud: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony with the composer conducting

• 1949 - Bartók: Viola Concerto (completed by Tibor Serly), posthumously, by violist William Primrose and the Minneapolis Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting

• 1949 - premiere of MGM film On the Town, based on the 1944 musical by Leonard Bernstein

• 1949 - Messiaen: first complete performance of Turangalila Symphony, by Boston Symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Three of the ten movements of this symphny were premiered in Paris on February 15, 1948).

• 1955 - Petrassi: Concerto for Orchestra No. 5, by the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch conducting

• 1955 - Ernst Toch: Symphony No. 3, by the Pittsburgh Symphony, William Steinberg conducting; This work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1956

• 1970 - Tippett: opera The Knot Garden, in London at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden

• 1988 - John Harbison: Fantasy Duo for violin and piano, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., with violinist David Abel and pianist Julie Steinberg

• 1998 - Zwilich: String Quartet No. 2, at Carnegie Hall in New York by the Emerson Quartet

• 1999 - James MacMillan: Symphony No. 2, at Ayr Town Hall in Scotland, by the Scottish Chamber Symphony, with the composer conducting

Others

• 1717 - J.S. Bach is allowed to leave the Duke’s Court at Weimar. He had been imprisoned since Nov. 6 by his former employer Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar for accepting a new post at Prince Leopold’s court at Cöthen without first asking permission.