Digital Concerts: Bartók

A colourful showpiece, and probably the most popular of Bartók’s orchestral works, the Concerto for Orchestra was composed in the USA, where Bartók and his wife, the pianist Ditta Pásztory, had moved in 1940 to escape fascism and war in their native Hungary. At this time, Bartók’s career, health and finances were in decline. His 60th birthday in 1941 had passed by unhonoured in his adopted home country.