Bela Bartók came to the United States from Hungary in 1940, with World War II already raging in Europe. A gifted pianist, he had made his living primarily as a performer and teacher, with frequent successful concert tours all over Europe and even (in 1927) in the United States. His compositions for piano, orchestra, and chamber groups were widely performed; he was also known as a collector and scholar of folk music. However, in this country he struggled to make a living. He gave a few concerts, did some scholarly work on a Yugoslav folk music collection at Harvard, and received a few commissions, one of which was this viola concerto, commissioned in 1945 by the eminent violist William Primrose. At the time, Bartók’s health was already declining (he had developed a form of blood cancer), and although he made considerable progress, he was too weak to complete the work before his death. His friend, the composer Tibor Serly, completed the concerto, working from Bartók’s sketches.

The concerto’s three movements are played without interruption. The overall mood is unsettled, beginning sadly and gradually becoming more intense and agitated. The second movement is at once serene and darkly melancholic. The final movement is aggressive and insistent and recalls virtuosic Hungarian folk fiddling. We even hear a simple folk dance before the agitation returns and the viola hurtles towards the end. Bartók missed his homeland desperately, and this work, highly personal, can fairly be read as a portrait of the composer’s last years.

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius studied the violin and played chamber music as a child with his musical family. He also began to compose at an early age. At 20 he became a law student but switched to musical composition, at which he excelled, eventually studying in Berlin and Vienna. He was also a serious violinist and earned a living for some years as a teacher, but he could never fulfill his youthful dream of being a soloist. In any case, his early success at the age of 26 as a composer set him firmly on that path. He had a grasp of symphonic writing that belied his youth. Many of his symphonic works were inspired by Norse mythology and Finnish nationalism; Finland was until 1917 an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian empire.

Sibelius’s sole violin concerto was completed in 1905 and is considered one of the most technically demanding works in the genre. The extensive first movement (fully half of the piece) begins with a dreamy entry of the soloist, followed by a mini cadenza, a declamatory statement, a furious march, a wistful pastoral, and a virtuosic cadenza. The moving Adagio introduces a lyrical melody on the G string, ending in a hesitant little scale, echoed, that resolves quietly in a low register, and then moves to a sonorous interlude for the orchestra, punctuated with passagework for the violin, with a return of the opening section, this time fading out in the heights. The third movement was described by musicologist Donald Francis Tovey as “a polonaise for polar bears,” giddy and boisterous over a bouncing string accompaniment, ending “in utmost and syncopated brilliance.”

Antonín Dvořák, recognized today as the quintessential Czech national composer, was the son of an innkeeper. He learned violin as a youngster, playing in church and in his local band, but left his village school at 12 to learn butchery, a family trade. Sent at 13 to learn and work in a larger town, he was able to continue his music studies and added the viola, piano, organ, and composition to his musical skills. His teachers recognized his talent and persuaded his family to support his musical studies. At 16 he enrolled at the Prague Organ School to be trained as a church musician but continued to play viola in various public engagements and to compose. After graduation at 18, he made a living as an orchestra violist and teacher, while his compositions received frequent public performances. He wrote in almost every genre, from chamber music to symphony and opera, and became more and more identified as representing Czech national music. From his 30s on, he was able to concentrate on composition, with major success on the continent and in England. In 1892 he made the first of two long visits to the United States, having been engaged (at a very high salary) to teach composition at the National Conservatory of Music in New York. The three years of his American period resulted in a number of compositions showing his interest in the music of Native and Black Americans, among them his Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” the sonatina for violin and piano, the “American” quartet (Op. 96 in F Major), and the cello concerto.

Dvořák’s friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan, had requested a concerto for years, but Dvořák, along with many of his contemporaries, resisted the idea of the cello as a solo instrument with orchestra. However, in New York, he heard the second of two cello concertos by his colleague at the Conservatory, the composer Victor Herbert. Now open to the challenge, he wrote the piece in New York, completing it back home with the addition of a coda as a memorial to his sister-in-law. His friend and mentor Johannes Brahms was so impressed with the cello concerto that he said if he had known it could be done, he himself might have written one. For many cellists this piece is the pinnacle of the genre.

Program notes by Ramona Matthews