Bővebb ismertető
Béla Bartók, shortly before he died, wrote to William Primrose :
•'lam very glad to be able to tell you that your Viola Concerto is ready In draft, so that only the score has to be written, which means a purely mechanical work, so to speak. If nothing happens I can be through in 5 or 6 weeks, that is, I can send you a copy of the orchestral score in the second half of October, and a few weeks afterwards a copy {or if you wish more copies) of the piano score.
"Many interesting problems arose in composing this work. The orchestration will be rather transparent, more transparent than in the Violin Concerto. Also the sombre, more masculine character of your instrument executed some influence on the general character of the work. The highest note I use is ' A but I exploit rather frequently the lower registers. It is conceited in a rather virtuoso style. Most probably some passages will prove to be uncomfortable or unplayable. These we will discuss later, according to your observations."
(signed) Béla Bartók
What for Bartók would have been " a purely mechanical work " involved a lengthy task.that required infinite patience and painstaking labour. For the difficulties that had to be overcome were threefold.
First, there was the problem of deciphering the manuscript itself. Bartók wrote his sketches on odd, loose sheets of music paper that happened to be on hand at the moment, some of which had parts of other sketches already on them. Bits of material that came to his mind were jotted down without regard for their sequence. The pages were not numbered nor the separation of movements indicated. The greatest difficulty encountered was deciphering his correction of notes, for Bartók, instead of erasing, grafted his improvements on to the original notes.
.'^Cg, .v. •:-
ht-
'A ' ' il^ 'J, >— : yft
Tj't;,, , ' , f
The next problem involved the matter of completing harmonies and other adornments which he had reduced to a form of shorthand. For as Bartok observed in his letter : " Most probably some passages will prove uncomfortable or unplayable."
Finally, except for Bartők's statement that " the orchestration will be rather transparent ", there were virtually no indications of the instrumentation. Strangely, this part presented the least difficulty, for the leading voices and contrapuntal lines upon which the background is composed were clearly indicated in the manuscript.
Tibor Serly.
* * *
Peu de temps avant sa mort Béla Bartok écrivit a William Primrose :
"Je suis tres heureux de vous dire que l'esquisse du Concerto pour Alto est prete, il ne reste plus qu a écrire la partition ce qui n'est qu'un travail mécanique. Si tout va bien je finirai aans cinq ou six semaines, c'est a dire que je vous enverrai la partition d'orchestre dans la seconde moiî/é d'octobre et quelques semaines apres un exemplaire (ou plusieurs si vous le désirez) de la réduction pour piano.
B. & H. 16953