Statue of Bartók in Brussels

Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra occupies a special place in the orchestral repertoire. It’s a wonder he ever composed it.

Bartók and his wife fled their native Hungary and moved to New York in 1940, shortly after he composed his last work in Europe, the Sixth String Quartet. He never felt comfortable in the United States and composed nothing at all for three years.

The money he received from royalties, occasional performances, and a research fellowship at Columbia University hardly provided enough to live on. To make matters worse, he contracted leukemia. The first symptoms appeared in 1940, but he did not receive a definitive diagnosis until 1944. Continue reading →