”One of the most important things I learned from Stravinsky was daring”, the terminally ill Béla Bartók confined to his physician during his last days, exiled in New York City. Regarding his staggering output, the composer’s verdict is perhaps at its most befitting when applied to his three piano concertos – game-changers of the medium encompassing a twenty-year period of Bartók’s creative maturity.
”For me, Bartók’s piano concertos are among the most demanding in the repertoire, due to their combination of instrumental challenge and musical significance. Their intensity is incandescent. Bartók’s own recordings teach us the extent to which every musical dimension nourishes every moment of his works – including his virtuosity. By this, I mean the extent to which everything in his work is melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, architectural, and also phrased, pulsed, spoken, sung and experienced”, Pierre-Laurent Aimard is quoted saying in the liner notes of the pianist’s new album recording of these twentieth century milestone scores.
Joined onstage by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and their Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, Aimard’s trusted partner-in-crime in ground-breaking performances, encompassing an extensive survey of repertoire from Beethoven to Ligeti, the Bartók recordings live up to the high standards set by the soloist’s previous collaborations with Pierre Boulez and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
The pianist’s fourth album on Pentatone, the disc also marks the SF Symphony’s first recording with Salonen released in tangible format, appearing alongside their Apple Music Classical digital-only exclusives. Recorded live at the orchestra’s Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall home on 16-19 June 2022 and 17-19 February 2023, the three album takes come off as riveting documents of an inspired partnership, serving each concerto with special insight and evocative vigor.
Composed between August and November 1926, Bartók’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in conceived somewhat in the manner of a concerto grosso, interlocking the solo keyboard with almost omnipresent percussion section of timpani, triangle, cymbals, tam-tam, two side-drums (with and without snares) and bass drum, calling forth four players. Seemingly picking up his cue from those unforeseen instrumental textures of Stravinsky’s Les Noces (1914-17/1923), Bartók opens the door into a sonorous realm which would keep him occupied for years to come, reaching zenith with the composition of Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937), his ultimate masterpiece, and its subsequent Concerto adaptation (1940). Joining the core ensemble, there is an orchestra of duple winds, doubling piccolo, English horn and bass clarinet, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and strings.
From the outset, Bartók makes it clear that this is not your ordinary concerto setup. Insistently repetitive pulsations from timpani and deep-end keyboard propel the music into Allegro moderato, joined by hollow calls from horns and trombones, followed – soon after – by trumpets. Bassoons pick up the material, leading the way into an accelerando, setting the stage for the Allegro proper. Over the 37-bar introduction, the key virtues of the Aimard, SF Symphony and Salonen team already come to fore. Register notwithstanding, the fabric is ever laid down with immaculate rhythmic precision and contrapuntal clarity, displaying full measures of keyboard and orchestral virtuosity. Regarding tempi and transitions in between, the music is always rendered with keen awareness of its kinetic demands. Here, for example, the transition from introduction to exposition is carried out in thoroughly organic manner, without resorting to borderline mannerism found on some classic recordings, such as the 1963 one by Rudolf Serkin and the Columbia Symphony under George Szell.
Once fully underway, the opening movement is given a terrific workout. The rhythmic energy mounts relentlessly towards a Petrushka-esque tutti burst after figure 18, followed by absolutely intriguing readings of Bartok´s central fragmentations from Aimard and the orchestra alike. From here, the movement is allowed to grow into its full whirl and vehemence, while retaining admirable clarity regarding articulation and rhythmic dissection, carried down to the very last fortissimo chord.
The-death-of-night second movement revolves around the soloist and the percussion section in sequences of spellbinding sonic imagery, slowly unfolded over some 230 bars of music. Oboe, clarinet, flute, English horn and bassoon solos emerge gradually, as the nocturnal procession travels through the phantasy soundscape, which eventually includes the horns as well. Passing by, the music then pares down to pianistic and percussive essentials, before transitioning into the Allegro molto third movement.
One of the finest takes in the discography, the Andante is performed with remarkably nuanced insight, with Aimard and the SF Symphony percussion beautifully aligned in time and dynamics under Salonen’s ever-attentive direction. The woodwind soloists convey their refined colorist spectrum with seamless transformation, providing essential contributions to the otherworldly scenery of the central movement. Out of the combined keyboard and percussion lines, textures of scintillating color are drawn, to a hallucinatory effect.
In the tour-de-force finale, the full ensemble is joined in surreal dance akin to Bartók’s ballet designs, as the soloist and the orchestra unleash their entire potential into the musical wild, giving rise to a roaring finale, awash with layered sonorous threads, all wholeheartedly embraced by Aimard, Salonen and the SF Symphony. A veritable concerto grosso, the movement is a feast of genuine collaboration, documenting shared music-making at its finest, as heard at Davies Hall on 16 and 17 June 2022; a Bartók reading to die for.
Four years after his first foray to the genre, Bartók was already at work with his Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1930-31). Here, the composer pays homage to Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923-24/1950) by dispensing with the string section in his dexterous Allegro first movement. String writing is restated in the course of the twenty-two-bar introduction into the Adagio second movement, performed with hushed intensity of muted, non vibrato textures. Coming together in the Presto central section and subsequently in the Allegro molto finale, the solo part is interwoven with an orchestral fabric of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, double-bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, side drum, triangle, bass drum, cymbals and strings.
Heralded by keyboard brilliance and trumpet flourishes, the opening Allegro makes tremendous use of its ensemble of solo piano, winds and brass, with timpani and percussion added, unleashing full-on virtuosity from the very opening measures, embracing – once again – the sensibilities of a Baroque concerto, albeit re-invented in poignant, unmistakably twentieth century raiments. Although Bartók clearly picks up from where he left in 1926, incorporating biting harmonies and quirky rhythms into complex instrumental configurations, the music does adopt more radiant tone in the opening movement, allowing the soloist and the orchestra some glistening material to shine upon.
And that’s just what Aimard, Salonen and the winds, brass and percussion of the SF Symphony do on the present recording, which comes from concert outings heard on 17-19 February 2023. Serving Bartók’s score with a combination of inextinguishable energy and polished detail they give us one of the finest album takes of the opening movement around, no less, one revealing intriguing instrumental details often lost in translation.
When Bartók finally introduces the strings into the fabric, he does so with such striking feat of dramaturgy that is unparalleled in the literature. The colorist effect of those muted, pure tone lines is quite without peer, transporting the listener into some tangible musical twilight, out of which the soloist’s first pensive commentaries ultimately emerge. As performed by the San Francisco strings and timpani under Salonen, the movement’s lead-in is realized with perfect misterioso hue. Joined by Aimard’s ever-refined pianism, the Adagio develops into sonic pre-echoes of Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936).
The full orchestra is summoned to perform the central Presto, an agile section recalling the ensemble virtuosity of the First Concerto and looking forward to the night birds of the Third. The soloist is asked to play throughout the extended central passage, their material exceeding to fabulous virtuosity. The opening material returns to close the movement, lending the music an arch-like overall form. Given in splendid performance, the second movement is a nocturnal treat.
Set in motion with a powerhouse duet for piano and timpani – with little help from bass drum – Bartók’s Allegro molto finale turns the keyboard once more into percussion instrument, as the soloist leads the orchestra into the wildest of dances. An uproarious instrumental festival, the movement is driven by unstoppable sonorous energy, as manifested by virtuosic solo piano passages, soaring brass fanfares, intricate woodwind iterations and showtime string configurations, punctuated by cornerstone percussion contributions. Playing their hearts out, Aimard, Salonen and the orchestra deliver a staggering account.
Posthumously premiered and first recorded by György Sandor, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy in 1946, Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra (1945) was the final work Bartók completed in his last months, save those seventeen bars of short score written out in full by Tibor Serly. Setting aside his fifteen-page draft for a projected Viola Concerto, the ailing composer labored hard to finish the music as a surprise birthday present for his wife, pianist Ditta Pástztory-Bartók, with whom Bartók premiered his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in Basel in January 1938, joined by percussionists Saul Goodman and Henry Deneke. Pástzory-Bartók went on to perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 as well, subsequently recording it with the Vienna Philharmonic and Serly in 1964.
Compared to its predecessors, the Third Concerto may not display their in-your-face attitude in equal measure. However that is not to say that it is any less challenging for its performers. Once the soloist gets started on the second measure, there’s hardly a moment’s rest for them, apart from the second movement introduction as well as an odd tacet bar here and another one there. Scored for solo piano and an orchestra of duple winds, with piccolo, English horn and bass clarinet added, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, xylophone, triangle, side drum, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam and strings, the concerto inhabits a musical sphere akin to that of the Concerto for Orchestra (1943/1945), presenting radical ideas with refined instrumental vocabulary.
Ostinato second violins and violas set the concerto in Allegretto motion, accentuated by buoyant pulsations from timpani and lower strings. The soloist introduces the main theme, fashioned after Hungarian folk dance idioms, colored by long-held clarinet lines. From this outset, a graciously kinetic tableau is drawn, one of subtle virtuosity for the keyboard and orchestra alike. The solo piano becomes engaged in animated discussions between woodwinds and muted brass. Strings take orchestral lead two thirds into the movement, while the keyboard part keeps on permuting the core material, giving rise to a choreographic scene par excellence.
”I knew the most important musician he was, I had heard wounders about the sensitivity of his ear, and I bowed deeply to his religiosity. However, I never could share his lifelong gusto for his native folklore. This devotion was certainly real and touching, but I couldn’t help regretting it in the great musician”, Stravinsky discussed with Robert Craft in Conversations (1959).
Although Bartók’s folk-imbued designs were often deemed problematic within the modernist mindset, of which Stravinsky’s commentary is but one well-documented example, one can hardly argue with the inventive vitality of the Third Concerto’s opening movement. Aimard and Salonen adopt an unhurried approach, their take clocking at 7’59”, as opposed to 6’20” of the Sándor and Ormandy 1946 album first. What may be lost in drive, is gained manifoldly in sonority and detail on the present recording. The piano part is awash with pristine articulation, whereas the orchestral rendition conveys Bartók’s scoring with all of its finesse.
Although the extent of Bartók’s religious convictions remain disputable, the second movement is nevertheless cast in striking Adagio religioso ambiance, primed with slowly unfolding pp introduction for strings and first clarinet, harking back to the night-music of the Second Concerto. A chorale theme is laid down by the solo piano, with sparse commentary from the string ensemble. Woodwinds, brass and xylophone join the soloist in lively poco più mosso conversation, evoking crepuscular birdsong tapestries not far removed from those by Olivier Messiaen, lending the music with captivating sense of narrative. Bridged by tam-tam, the central section is followed by a ten-bar postlude, brifly re-establishing the atmosphere and the orchestration of the movement’s opening.
One of the high-points on the album, the slow movement is a case in point of vividly colored musical twilight, unraveled within seamless, dream-like sonorous logic, noting Bartók’s diverse allusions full well, with echoes of late Beethoven quartet, Tristan and blues merged into something truly universal, to a dazzling effect.
Ensuing genuinely attacca in Aimard’s hands, the Allegro vivace finale has it all. Soloist’s scalar patterns lead to chordal main theme, accompanied by pizzicato strings, soon joined by and woodwinds and brass. The orchestral build-up lands on a splendid timpani cadenza, marvelously enhanced by deeply-echoed bass drum thuds. A gorgeous fugal section is launched on the solo piano, extending into strings and subsequently given a full ensemble workout, paving the way to those almost outdoor festivities at the heart of the closing movement. Following a two-bar full rest, the concerto begins its decisive final ascent, rounding off with the soloist’s joie-de-vivre climb on the keyboard, leading to two-bar tutti burst.
”His death in circumstances of actual need has always impressed me as one of the tragedies of our society”, Stravinsky commented, pointing out the polar opposites between the concerto’s ravishing final brilliance and the dire realities out of which those closing pages emerged.
Regarding tempi, Aimard and Salonen are again less hard-pressing than Sándor and Ormandy, taking exemplary care of phrasing and musical architecture, giving rise to spellbinding contrapuntal mastery from the soloist and the SF Symphony players. As recorded on 18 and 19 June 2022, the concerto is given an organic reading, one cherishing the clarity and logic of Bartók’s final musical thoughts. The performance may not come off as radical rethink in the manner of Andreas Haefliger and the Helsinki Philharmonic under Susanna Mälkki on their 2020 BIS account, but then again, why re-invent the wheel if things fall in their right places even with more of an as-is approach. An uplifting reading with sonic discoveries in abundance, the Concerto No. 3 brings the album to its natural, fulfilling close.
In terms of engineering and post-production, the Pentatone album serves the recorded takes with focused aural imagery. A tad on the dry side, perhaps, the album documentations three concerti are adorned with clarity and spatial resolution, to a gratifying effect. Given that there is no discernible audience noise is heard at any point, the recordings provide the listener with the best of both worlds – vividness of concert settings realized within studio translucence.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Béla Bartók: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1, Sz. 83 (1926)
Béla Bartók: II. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Sz. 95 (1930-31)
Béla Bartók: Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra, Sz. 119 (1945)
Recorded at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA on on 16-19 June 2022 and 17-19 February 2023
Pentatone PTC 5187029 (2023), 1 CD
© Jari Kallio
AIM - Adventures in Music 
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