6 (1939), could well have been his last were it not for this commission, which sparked a small number of other compositions, including his Sonata for Solo Violin and Piano Concerto No.

[citation needed] In 1943, while Bartok was in hospital, suffering from what would later be discovered to be leukemia, he was visited by Serge Koussevitzky who wanted to inform him of the commission for him to write the work which would become this concerto.

For example, the second main theme of the first movement, as played by the first oboe, resembles a folk melody, with its narrow range and almost haphazard rhythm.

[1] The first movement, Introduzione, consists of a slow introduction, presenting the main material (consecutive intervals of fourths, scale fragments, mirror ideas etc.

In between the first and second playing of this part there is a short interlude which to some listeners (including some who write cover notes for recordings of this work) suggests a kind of marriage ceremony.

At some later date, Bartók added the words "Presentando le coppie" or "Presentation of the couples" to the manuscript and the addition of this title was included in the list of corrections to be made to the score.

However, in Bartók's file blueprint the final title is found, and because it is believed to have been the composer's later thought, it is retained in the revised edition of the score.

The programme of the first performance in Boston clearly has the movement marked "Allegro scherzando" and the keeper of the Bartók archives was able to give us further conclusive evidence that the faster tempo must be correct.

And years later, in 1943, it was Reiner, along with Joseph Szigeti, who persuaded Serge Koussevitsky to commission Bartok to write the Concerto for Orchestra.

[2] The fourth movement, "Intermezzo interrotto" (literally "interrupted intermezzo"), consists of a flowing melody with changing time signatures, intermixed with a theme that quotes the song "Da geh' ich zu Maxim" from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow,[8] which had recently also been referenced in the 'invasion' theme of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No.

"[2] The fifth movement, marked presto, consists of a whirling perpetuum mobile main theme competing with fugato fireworks and folk melodies.

In 1985, Peter Bartók, son of the composer, discovered a manuscript of a piano, two-hands reduction of the score, in the large body of material which had been left to him upon his father's death.

The world premiere recording of this edited reduction was made by György Sándor in 1987, on CBS Masterworks: the CD also includes piano versions of the Dance Suite, Sz.