Collective Virtuosity in Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.

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Hailed as a critical and popular success since its premiere in December 1944, Béla Bartók's
Concerto for Orchestra is most often discussed as the accessible masterpiece that helped launch a
posthumous resurgence of the composer's earlier musical output. Yet the historical and aesthetic
significance of this work in relation to American orchestral life—and Serge Koussevitzky's
Boston Symphony Orchestra in particular—remains largely ignored. The Concerto for Orchestra
can be viewed through the lens of what might be called "collective virtuosity": a concept that
describes the performance of a work whose challenging musical language requires a heightened
level of artistic teamwork. Described through musical analysis and strengthened by archival
research and management theory, this phenomenon reflects a multitude of historical and social
developments that are particularly salient to the story surrounding Bartók's Concerto, thus
serving as a useful analytic tool that reveals new insights concerning the work and its popular
success in America.
In 1943, at the behest of conductor Fritz Reiner and violinist József Szigeti, Serge Koussevitzky
paid Béla Bartók (1881–1945) an unexpected visit at Doctor's Hospital in New York, where the
composer was undergoing treatment for leukemia. Although Bartók had not completed a new
work in nearly four years, Koussevitzky convinced him to accept a commission from his
Koussevitzky Music Foundation, to be premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The
conductor even took the unusual step of offering half of the $1,000 commissioning fee upfront,
trusting that such an act of good faith would convince the composer to accept. The result, his
Concerto for Orchestra (1943), has been a success from its first performance. By 1949 Bartók
had become the third-most performed twentieth-century composer by American orchestras,
behind only Strauss and Prokofiev.[ 1]
Although this story has received considerable attention among scholars, the significance of the
Concerto as observed in the cultural context of 1940s America remains largely unexplained.[ 3]
This article reevaluates the work's historical and aesthetic significance in terms of its genesis,
performance, and reception. I place particular emphasis on how Bartók's Concerto exploits and
celebrates the modern virtuoso orchestra through a musical language that is difficult to execute
as an ensemble, suggesting a heightened level of musical teamwork. This phenomenon—what I
call "collective virtuosity"—signals more than just brilliance or bravura, which permeates much
of the orchestral canon after 1880. It also reflects a multitude of historical and social
developments that are particularly acute in the story surrounding Bartók's Concerto, rendering
collective virtuosity a useful analytic tool that reveals new insights concerning the work and its
popular success in America.
As one of the most-performed works of the twentieth century, the Concerto holds a coveted
position in the orchestral repertory, mediating between ease of access and complexity of
execution to meet the expectations of a popular audience without sacrificing sophistication.[ 4] J.
Peter Burkholder suggests that:
The most enduring modern music [is] that of composers who have appealed to both the learned
and the mass audience, ... combining the complexity, depth, and novelty expected by the
connoisseur with the tunefulness, expressivity, traditionalism, and immediate appeal expected by
the average listener.[75]
One might say this is particularly true in the United States. As early as 1924, it was apparent that
"Americans [did] not like too much pepper where orchestral music [was] concerned."[ 5] While
some scholars have studied this phenomenon, not one to my knowledge has addressed the
reception of Bartók's work in relation to it. This article attempts to fill that gap, using collective
virtuosity as an analytic lens to help demonstrate the aesthetic connection between art and its
context: here, the Concerto for Orchestra and Koussevitzky's virtuoso Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Understanding how and why Bartók's Concerto demonstrates collective virtuosity
offers a more nuanced explanation of the development of symphony orchestras in the United
States while highlighting how certain musical works interact with that story.

BARTÓK'S CONCERTO AND A NEW MUSICAL AESTHETIC

Long hailed as one of Bartók's most accessible works, the Concerto for Orchestra—from its
genesis to its reception—reflects the shifting cultural politics of 1930s and 1940s America.[ 6]
Even a slight move away from the complex experiments of the preceding decades might be seen
as a reflection of the global economic and political climate, as a response to the "rapidly
diminishing good will toward contemporary concert-hall composers on the part of the music-
loving public," and ultimately as an expression of wartime culture.[ 7] With the onslaught of the
Great Depression and the adoption of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies, American
artists of all types were encouraged to reassert their connections with a mass audience—a stark
change considering the hierarchical schism between high art and popular culture that marked the
last decades of the nineteenth century. FDR's Works Progress Administration (WPA),
inaugurated in 1935, launched an ambitious scheme of arts-based programs, including the
Federal Music Project (FMP). Under the leadership of conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, the FMP
dispensed tens of millions of dollars into the American music scene, provided jobs to
unemployed musicians, and "lifted the country's musical IQ" through a steady diet of classical
warhorses and audience-pleasers.[ 8]
One of the most enduring programs sponsored by the FMP was the Composer's Forum
Laboratory, which purported to develop "a more definite understanding and relationship between
the composer and the public" by commissioning, performing, and broadcasting works by
American composers.[ 9] The first Forum concert featured the music of Roy Harris, and
subsequent commissions were premiered by the more than thirty FMP-sponsored orchestras,
including newly founded ensembles in Buffalo, New York, and Salt Lake City, Utah, that to this
day continue to present concerts. By 1939 the concert division alone had performed more than
6,500 American compositions and employed some 8,000 musicians in orchestras, dance bands,
chamber ensembles, choruses, and schools and universities. Indeed, it was the WPA that
sustained, or perhaps even created, the idea that every city and town should support an orchestra
of its own.
This policy-driven shift toward the social function of music was augmented by developments
from within the musical community. During the Depression and World War II, classical music
"encapsulated America's we're-all-in-this-together spirit" and showed how individual efforts
could be pooled together to provide collective good.[10] The connection between this new
pluralism embodied by Roosevelt's ideal America and Bartók's Concerto has recently prompted
one writer to call the work "a portrait of democracy in action."[11] Considered more generally,
this new aesthetic was in part shaped by impulses toward the democratization of culture and
consumerism in America. By the 1930s, more than ever before, "music [was] in all its public
aspects a business."[12] In addition to Bartók's Concerto, other works reflect to varying degrees
this same shift by employing other "strains" of collective virtuosity through orchestration
techniques and ensemble flair. Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (1930), George Gershwin's
Second Rhapsody (1931), Paul Hindemith's Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass (1930), Walter
Piston's Concerto for Orchestra (1933), and a handful of works by Copland (including the Suite
from Appalachian Spring [1944] and his Third Symphony [1946]) all address aspects of
collective virtuosity, and all were premiered by Koussevitzky and his orchestra.[13]
The accessible musical aesthetic that these works in part created—characterized by a kinetic
vitality, open harmonies, transparent orchestration, and pervasive clarity—carries important
implications regarding the popular success of Bartók's Concerto. The few scholars who have
published on the reception of Bartók's late works link his posthumous success with the accessible
nature of his final compositions (1943–45), including the Concerto, a Sonata for Violin, and a
Third Piano Concerto (with all but the final seventeen measures orchestrated).[14] Indeed, the
Concerto for Orchestra is just one of several works that suggest a desire to engage with and meet
the expectations of audiences, inducing some to describe them "as a variety of popular music, or
as a music on the boundary between serious and popular."[15]
As early as the 1930s, government initiatives and cavalier conductors such as Koussevitzky were
trying to reinstate a shared public culture, effectively attempting to bridge the gap between
highbrow concert music and mass appeal. To be sure, the entrepreneurial spirit of American
orchestras in popularizing their musical offerings reflects their interest in garnering commercial
success, but the root of entrepreneurial operating models for the symphony orchestra reaches
back nearly two hundred years. The "enterprise orchestras" so prevalent in nineteenth-century
Europe were privately run, commercial ventures, with musical performances labeled as products
and players as employees, not artists.[16] This same bottom-line-oriented and audience-building
mentality was omnipresent in 1930s and 1940s America. Koussevitzky and the Boston
Symphony Orchestra were not alone in their quest—Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia
Orchestra's collaboration with Walt Disney on the film Fantasia in 1940, Arturo Toscanini's
legendary recordings and broadcasts with the NBC Symphony, and Boston's own Pops, led by
Arthur Fiedler, all signaled the popularization of musical culture in America.
While it is difficult to trace the impetus behind Bartók's subtle but effective simplification of
style around the time of this shift, various commentators have invoked practical, economic, and
even political terms to do so. Musicologist Tibor Tallián's chapter in Bartók and His
World argues that the composer's American works serve as a response to his own physical and
cultural displacement. Bartók's years in the United States were not only filled with misery,
disease, and indifference, they also produced some of his most enduring and accessible music.
Tallián also acknowledges the role of the orchestra in the conception and success of the
Concerto, claiming that "a work for large orchestra was his [Bartók's] only chance to break into
the orchestra-oriented musical life of the United States."[17] Taking this argument one step
further, the Concerto might be viewed as a mediation between popular perceptions of
accessibility and modernism, thus explaining in part the revival of Bartók's music shortly after
his death.[18]
Malcolm Gillies addresses the conception and genesis of the Concerto in "Bartók in America,"
which focuses on the composer's personal and financial situations, linking them to the new
aesthetic and ideology associated with Bartók's late works.[19] Alternatively, David Cooper
argues that the work's performance history and critical reception account for any aesthetic
change. Rather than seeing the Concerto as a "token of compromise" or a capitulation to popular
trends, Cooper cites critic Olin Downes's review of the New York premiere, positioning the work
as "indicative of the composer's [Bartók's] courage in seeking new means of expression," yet "a
wide departure from its author's harsher and more cerebral style."[20] While Cooper's discussion
includes important observations concerning the presence of virtuosity throughout the piece, he
neglects to address pertinent connections between the orchestra's institutional development in the
1940s and Bartók's Concerto—a connection that Roger Fowler aptly, if briefly, explores. For
Fowler, "it seemed inevitable that the concerto for orchestra should emerge," given the
increasing level of technical prowess of symphony orchestras. Indeed, "it was ... the growing
reputation of the leading American orchestras in general, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
under its conductor Serge Koussevitzky in particular, which stimulated [Bartók] to write
Concerto for Orchestra."[21]
We know little about Bartók's own thoughts concerning the Concerto and its connection to the
modern orchestra, although some of the published correspondence among his family members
and friends offers hints. The published letters include those between Bartók, his wife Ditta
Pásztory, their youngest son Peter, and József Szigeti, which describe Bartók's extended stay in
America, as well as the history surrounding his Concerto. In a letter from Ditta to Szigeti dated
May 21, 1943, one can glean a sense of the life-affirmation and rebirth so often—and perhaps
too often—associated with the Concerto.
Koussevitzky visited B.[éla] in the sanatorium, and I know that B. was very pleased about it.
They agreed upon a purely orchestral work.... I am so glad that plans, musical ambitions,
compositions are stirring in Béla's mind—a new hope, discovered in this way quite by chance, as
it were incidentally.[76]
The only remaining description of the Concerto by the composer, found in his original program
note for the piece, reinforces this interpretation, insisting that the work should end in "life
assertion."[22] Two years later, in a letter to Koussevitzky, Szigeti refers to the very act of
commissioning the Concerto as a "life-saving gesture."[23] Flattery and exaggeration aside,
Koussevitzky's offer did afford Bartók the opportunity to compose with a purpose for the first
time in years, resurrecting his career if only for a short time.

KOUSSEVITZKY AND THE AMERICAN ORCHESTRA

Koussevitzky's role as patron and commissioner should not be discounted when considering the
conception not only of Bartók's work but also of a handful of orchestral pieces by other
European émigrés and American composers. By 1943 the conductor had "befriended the most
talented and forward-looking composers in this country, made himself intimately familiar with
their personal traits, and so reached an understanding of their music which is as native as a
native-born conductor's could be."[24] Koussevitzky and his orchestra became a veritable
training ground for young American composers—including Copland, Hanson, Harris, Piston,
Barber, Bernstein, and Foss—not because it made for good press, but because it was something
he truly believed in. At the same time, Koussevitzky cultivated an orchestra and a concert-going
public in Boston that was arguably more tolerant to and invested in the music of living
composers than anywhere else in the country.[25]
Although this study focuses on Bartók, it may be useful to explore some of the other composers
who, through the process of working with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
generated works that displayed some characteristics of collective virtuosity.[26] Similar to
Bartók's Concerto, Walter Piston's Concerto for Orchestra (1933) was written with Koussevitzky
and the virtuoso Boston Symphony Orchestra in mind. Another early example of the "concerto
for orchestra" genre, the work's final movement is particularly effective at showcasing the
orchestra's brilliance; the opening successive entrances of tuba, trombones, horns, trumpets, and
upper woodwinds create an ever-growing texture that exudes tension and excitement while
simply introducing different instruments of the orchestra. Downes hailed the first New York
performance as "technically virtuosic," and likened the orchestra to "a whole band of
virtuosos."[27] Another member of Koussevitzky's stable of young composers, Roy Harris, was
becoming at around the same time the most prolific American composer of symphonies, with
nearly all of them—his Second (Symphony: 1933), Third, Fifth, and Sixth—commissioned or
premiered by Koussevitzky. Only five years before the conductor's death, Harris plainly admitted
how significant Koussevitzky's influence had been on his music: "My whole conception of
writing for symphonic orchestras, I owe to [Koussevitzky] ... and I think it has been a very
strong, dynamic one. From [his] guidance one learns to write boldly for the orchestra."[28] This
"dynamism" is especially evident in Harris's Third Symphony (1939), which remains one of the
most approachable and expressive American symphonies in the repertoire, even if reviews of the
first performances are lacking in critical substantiation.[29] The work's long note values,
homophonic textures, parallel part writing, and triadic composition belie the difficulties it
presents performers, and none other than Aaron Copland anointed it one of the most
approachable yet significant symphonic works ever written by an American.[30]
Copland's own connection to Koussevitzky has been well documented, but should not go
unmentioned. In 1946 the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered his Third Symphony, which
was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation in March 1944. The work became Copland's
major project for two years following the success of Appalachian Spring, and it might be seen as
the culmination of the composer's populist style. For Copland, writing the work represented more
than just money and prestige (he turned down a lucrative offer to work on a Hollywood picture
with Sam Goldwyn, along with a University of California-Los Angeles teaching post, to focus on
the symphony); it provided him the opportunity to work with his mentor to create something of
lasting importance. There is also evidence that Copland "knew the kind of thing Koussevitzky
liked to conduct and what he wanted,"[31] going so far as to travel to Koussevitzky's home in
order to play the work at the piano.[32] Elizabeth Bergman Crist's article detailing the genesis of
Copland's Third Symphony makes clear the looming presence of Koussevitzky, including how
he worked (along with protégé and friend Leonard Bernstein) with Copland to cut down the
work's final movement.[33] Even if some of Koussevitzky's editorial demands were in
opposition to Copland's artistic vision, the composition process was truly a collaborative one,
with Koussevitzky and his orchestra influencing the tone and shape of the work.
Musically, the final two movements of Copland's symphony fit particularly well with the concept
of collective virtuosity as outlined in the introduction of this article and expounded upon below.
The rhythmic vitality and wind-dominated textures that permeate the third movement carry into
the work's finale, which features the open sonorities and transparent textures associated with
Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. Although fragments of the fanfare are continually
juxtaposed and superimposed with themes heard earlier in the piece, the cyclical recall and tonal
recapitulation make the movement—and the work as a whole—easily appreciated by both the
average audience member and the connoisseur. In an early review of the Third Symphony,
composer and friend Virgil Thomson explained that
it is the very simplicity of Copland's musical language ... that has long made his music seem
difficult. Laymen and even musicians are so accustomed to composers' exploiting prefabricated
stylistic complexities that obscure more thought than they express that they easily mistake
transparency for willfulness. I have known him and his work too long to believe him capable of
obfuscation. The will that is involved is a determination to communicate, to share with others
through music thoughts and feelings that by their common humanity all men can recognize.[77]
For the broader public, Copland's music was successful precisely because it "satisfied the
personal and cultural need for connections between creator and audience, art and life, individual
and group."[34]
While Koussevitzky's influence on the compositional styles of Piston, Harris, and Copland
unfolded over decades, his interactions with Bartók were not nearly as protracted. Yet one could
argue that the conductor's role in shaping the Concerto was just as fundamental. Only a year
before the piece was written, Bartók himself noted that "artistic creative work generally is the
result of an outgrowth [sic] of strength, high spiritedness, joy of life.... All of these conditions are
sadly missing with me at present."[35] Although there is some debate regarding the role that the
Concerto and its commissioner played in rehabilitating the ailing composer, it is indisputable that
Koussevitzky was one of the galvanizing forces behind Bartók's return to composition. An
unsigned program note dated April 6, 1954, quotes Boosey & Hawkes's manager Hans
Heinsheimer's version of the process:
Something happened in [Bartók's hospital] room that strangely and mysteriously resembles an
event in another sick room, 152 years earlier: the sudden appearance of the "mysterious
stranger," who had come to commission the dying Mozart to write the "Requiem." This time, in
streamlined New York, the messenger was no mystery man.... His name was Serge
Koussevitzky.[78]
This fanciful comparison is at least partly contradicted by the facts as laid out by Peter Bartók
(Béla's youngest son) and Ellis Freedman of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. A set of
documents from the Koussevitzky Foundation Archives offers an alternative timeline regarding
the prolonged genesis of the Concerto. Commissioned on May 4, 1943, the work was allegedly
finished at Saranac Lake the following summer and fall. Nevertheless, the Concerto did not
receive its premiere until December 1, 1944—more than a year after its completion.[36] Given
this data, and the instability of Bartók's health throughout the composition process, it would be
misleading to attribute any personal or professional rehabilitation solely to Koussevitzky. It does
seem clear, however, that Koussevitzky's decision to commission the Concerto resonated both
with Bartók's career and the American public's perception of his music.
In addition to being a prominent advocate for new music, Koussevitzky was anointed a
"virtuoso" conductor by audiences. Although he was not considered a spectacular technician, his
charismatic persona made him a larger than life figure in the cultural life of mid-century
Boston.[37] Koussevitzky was interested in engaging with and educating audiences, as well. In
the words of Ayden Wren Adler,
he succeeded at building a distinct repertory with which his local public became well versed, and
upon which he further built with the introduction of newly composed works that he performed
consistently and repeatedly. He constructed each concert and every season as a coherent,
communal musical journey, thus cultivating an ongoing relationship with his listening
public.[79]
Thus it is not surprising that much of the music commissioned by Koussevitzky in the 1930s and
1940s is relatively audience-oriented. While no correspondence between Koussevitzky and
Bartók concerning the accessibility of the Concerto remains, it seems likely that Bartók was
aware of Koussevitzky's artistic priorities and tenets, having appeared as a soloist with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra as early as February 1928. The composer was also conscious of the
unparalleled virtuosity exhibited by American orchestras, the musicians of which had achieved
higher levels of technical skill than previously thought possible. As early as 1923, America was
identified as the "Homeland of Great Orchestras," and by 1956 "a stylistic chasm separated
[American ensembles] from the Europeans," with orchestras in the United States generally
regarded as more brilliant than their cross-Atlantic contemporaries.[38] In a conversation with
M. D. Calvoressi (a London musician, critic, and writer), Bartók confessed: "I envy them
[American orchestras], and the magnificent standard of the performances they are able to
enjoy."[39]
The simultaneous rise of the American orchestra, both as an ensemble of virtuosos and as an
institution seeking to engage audiences, plays an important role in this narrative. In 1942, just a
year before the Concerto was commissioned, the League of American Orchestras was founded to
provide artistic, financial, and organizational support to American orchestras. Around the same
time, the musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra became the last major ensemble to
unionize, suggesting a tipping point in the orchestra's institutional identity. While the suggestion
that American orchestras have historically performed "with a brilliance that is strictly national
and a virtuoso quality that European orchestras have rarely tried to achieve" may seem
improbable, a sense of national pride in instrumentalists and orchestras certainly existed in
America around the time of the Concerto.[40] At least one prominent musicologist has claimed
that
the importance which audiences in America then placed on beauty of instrumental tone, and on
orchestral virtuosity per se, must be considered a phenomenon unique to that country. If one
researches ... which conductors enjoyed major careers in the United States, one finds that the
longest tenures were often the privilege of those men who were able to cultivate and maintain
high standards of orchestral playing.[80]
Koussevitzky himself claimed that "never before in musical history have so many great
instrumentalists congregated in one country as here in the U.S."[41] Surely this was intended as a
marketing ploy, yet it subtly suggests an important issue when discussing virtuosity in American
orchestras: the role played by foreign-born talent. Koussevitzky's statement does not discount the
role played by the many European immigrants who flocked to America to escape persecution,
find full-time musical employment, and, perhaps inadvertently, help build a native musical
culture. Koussevitzky was one of these immigrants. This congregation of talented musicians,
then, refers to both the influx of European virtuosos and the injection of impeccably trained
musicians from America's newly founded conservatories into the national arts scene (see Figure
1).
Graph: FIGURE 1 The Boston Globe's preview of the 1945–1946 Boston Symphony Orchestra
season, prominently featuring the principal players (courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Archives, October 21, 1945).
These players, in conjunction with a generation of virtuoso conductors (including Toscanini,
Stokowski, and Koussevitzky) and arts administrators (notably Arthur Judson, manager in both
New York and Philadelphia), helped elevate orchestras to unprecedented artistic and commercial
success, prompting one writer to call the orchestra America's "foremost cultural asset."[42] It is
reasonable, then, to suggest that the consumers of American musical culture—the audience—
have historically felt more connected to collectives and ensembles (such as the symphony
orchestra) than to individual artists or genius figures.[43] Joseph Horowitz has argued that
"classical music in the United States [has been] more about the New York Philharmonic than
Charles Ives, more about the Metropolitan Opera than Aaron Copland ... it is one of the features
that sets American classical music apart."[44] While this claim has been countered elsewhere,
my research suggests a more fluid interaction among composer, performer, and institution than
has typically been assumed.[45] In their role as arbiter and distributor of new music,
Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave voice to a generation of composers and
served as a model for the modern American orchestra. This phenomenon serves to strengthen the
connection between American musical culture and collective virtuosity, a concept rooted in
ensemble performance and communal experience.

COLLECTIVE VIRTUOSITY
The definition of collective virtuosity presented at the onset of this article was constructed so that
it might act as an effective analytic tool in more than one interpretive context, referring not only
to the orchestra as an ensemble but also to the musical text being performed and the act of
performance itself. Indeed, the concept of collective virtuosity is rooted in the very identity of
ensemble performance, both in the twentieth century and the more distant past. While musical
virtuosity is most often associated with the individual performer, broadening this notion to
encompass the collective is wholly appropriate. My conception draws on management theory
and organizational dynamics, and it offers a useful mode of analysis with which to interpret the
music of Bartók's Concerto as collectively virtuosic on multiple levels—as a written score, in
performance, and as a catalyst and spotlight for virtuoso orchestra and conductor.
Traditional definitions of musical virtuosity are typically "restricted to [individual] performers ...
whose technical accomplishments [are] so pronounced as to dazzle the public,"[46] but one can
easily expand this notion to include musical groups or ensembles. Scholars from outside music
can help to deepen our understanding of group dynamics while shaping a more robust and
specific interpretation of collective virtuosity.[47] Organizational theory provides a novel but
appropriate means of explaining the inherently collective action associated with ensemble
performance, especially given the complex and intensely hierarchical structure of the modern
orchestra. Sociologist Howard Becker was one of the first to theoretically conceive of art as a
fundamental result of collective work in his groundbreaking and wide-reaching book Art
Worlds.[48] By defining social organization vis-à-vis a group of people acting together to
produce a variety of different events in a recurring way, Becker posits convention not as a
negative force that inhibits innovation, but as a means of making "traditional" art less costly—in
time, energy, and resources. Business scholar Mark Marotto and his collaborators have recently
used the term "collective virtuosity" in an organizational study of symphony orchestras, where
"groups can be transformed by their own performance in a reflexive process in which virtuosity
... becomes collective."[49] Another management study designed by scholars Andy Boynton and
Bill Fischer suggests that "celebrating individual egos by creating opportunities for solo
performances" can "foster impassioned, direct dialogue" that "will forge their most brilliant
work."[50] Conceptually, this fits well with the notion of the orchestra as an ensemble of
soloists, which became an increasingly common perspective right around the time of Bartók's
Concerto, especially in relationship to Koussevitzky's virtuoso Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Musicologists have also broached, or at least hinted at, the subject of collective virtuosity, with
Paul Bekker describing the "contemporary orchestra" of the mid-1930s as exhibiting a "new
collectivity," where "virtuosi who would formerly have tried to proclaim themselves soloists ...
became members of orchestras."[51] This is not to suggest that collective virtuosity appeared
abruptly, without precedent, around the time of Koussevitzky's tenure in Boston. The roots of
such a concept are imbedded in developments from as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, when "improvising" orchestras and tutti concerti were first introduced by Corelli,
Vivaldi, and others, and Mannheim's "army of generals" gained notoriety as the world's most
disciplined musical ensemble. Even E.T.A. Hoffmann's famous review of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony characterizes the work's fourth movement as possessing qualities akin to collective
virtuosity.[52] The concept can then be traced to the late nineteenth century, when Theodore
Thomas helped form what is now the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1890). Thomas's vision was
one rooted in broad audience appeal and impeccable ensemble technique, characteristics similar
to those Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra would strive for half a century later.
For both conductors, "a symphony orchestra [should] show the culture of a community."[53]
Many compositions from the early twentieth century, including Stravinsky's Rite of Spring,
might also be discussed in terms of collective virtuosity, although the riot at the ballet's 1913
premiere suggests that most listeners were not yet ready to engage with music of this sort.[54]
It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that audiences (and composers, to an extent) began
reevaluating so-called modernist music en masse—a development that was augmented by the
continued maturation of the orchestra's organizational framework. The successful collaboration
among performers, administrators, and a mass audience reached new heights in Boston around
this time, thus redefining the boundaries of collective virtuosity. The phenomenon I am
describing here, then, is inspired by but fundamentally different from difficult orchestral pieces
by Mahler, Strauss, and others. Although works by these and other composers may challenge
orchestral musicians and display certain virtuoso characteristics, I argue that Bartók's Concerto
represents a distinctive and even heightened case of collective virtuosity. Indeed, the piece
reflects both the late-life aspirations of Bartók and the reputation of Koussevitzky and his
orchestra, absorbing historical, biographical, and social elements into an appealing musical
dialect. Figure 2 depicts this interaction graphically, linking the work's various influences and
characteristics (represented by the overlapping circles) through an inferred process of
collaboration and creation (represented teleologically by the arrow). When considered in
conjunction with contemporary developments in orchestra policy, ensemble capability, and
musical style, along with the broader cultural context of 1940s America, the Concerto's brand of
collective virtuosity is markedly different from theoretical business constructs, early orchestral
practices, or virtuoso writing and performing in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Graph: FIGURE 2 Graphical representation of collective virtuosity as process in Bartók's
Concerto for Orchestra. (Thanks to Natasha Mauskapf for assistance in designing and
constructing this diagram.)
The sense of collaboration and engagement noted previously exists not only among musicians
but also between performer and audience. In many ways, the Concerto is as rooted in
engagement as it is in virtuosity. Demonstrating the connection between discrete musical
techniques and increased audience appeal is tricky, primarily because such a connection exists
primarily through perception, and thus is difficult to substantiate. Nevertheless, the presence of
certain musical elements—including rhythmic vitality, consonant harmonies, and the evocation
of folk-like gestures—do effectively correlate with audience excitement and engagement. As
pointed out by V. A. Howard in his study of virtuosity in the performing arts, such a concept is
inextricable from the critics and audiences who recognize it, entering them into a direct dialogue
with the performer(s) in question.[55] Audiences have long had a fascination with virtuosity;
sports make for an apt analogy. In addition to being attracted to the team atmosphere present in
so many athletic events, sports fans also tend toward the exciting and dramatic. The use of
virtuosity as a means of entertainment and as a channel through which to reach and connect with
audiences is paramount in both music and sports. While connoisseurs may appreciate and even
promote good defense or pitching, the average fan would prefer to see unmitigated offense
resulting in new scoring or homerun records—virtuoso performers at their most virtuosic. For
certain audiences, this logic could be mapped onto Bartók's Concerto: the work is clearly
exciting and dramatic, showcasing virtuoso performers that astound audiences with their
enviable and palpable abilities. This sense of engagement applies to the performers as well, who
must interact with the other members of their section, and members of other sections, in order to
successfully execute a complete musical performance.

BARTÓK'S CONCERTO AS COLLECTIVE VIRTUOSITY

While most studies of the Concerto have dealt with Bartók's use of a hybrid harmonic language
that includes the integration of folk elements, his compositional treatment of ensemble, section,
and soloist is just as noteworthy. The analysis that follows will emphasize musical elements that
might be deemed collectively virtuosic, ultimately describing how these passages translate to an
audience through performance. The result—a contemporary work that is complex yet
engaging—serves to highlight how music can be shaped by its historical context, thus shedding
new light on the Concerto while connecting the modern orchestra with its audience.
The work as a whole is marked by a variety of instrumental combinations and textures,
challenging individual performers, sections, and the orchestra as a whole with issues of balance,
rhythmic precision, intonation, and ensemble. After a section marked Tranquillo in the opening
movement (mm. 272–312), an extended brass fugato erupts from the dense texture, announcing a
celebrated instance of what might be considered collective virtuosity (see Example 1a and 1b).
Beginning with the second trombone, the fugato continues with entrances by the first trombone
(m. 322), second trumpet (m. 328), and first trumpet (m. 334). This fanfare-like subject then
passes to the horns, which invert the subject at measure 342. Six bars later, the second trumpet
re-enters with the inverted subject, followed by similar gestures in the third trumpet (m. 349),
bass trombone (m. 350), second trombone (m. 353), and first trumpet (m. 358). This contrapuntal
passage engages the entire brass section in an ongoing, virtuoso conversation. The concept of
counterpoint or imitation serves as an apt descriptor here, as the listener becomes immersed in
the now six-part fugato that builds measure by measure with successive imitative brass entrances
of a slightly altered theme. Bartók showcases both individual instrumental voices and the entire
brass section as a distinct unit within the orchestra, creating a texture that is at once dense and
transparent.
Graph: EXAMPLE 1a Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 1, mm. 316–53 (brass and
timpani parts only).
Graph: EXAMPLE 1b Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 1, mm. 354–76 (brass parts
only).
While the subject of the brass fugato is not difficult as a melodic figure, the passage contributes
one of the most treacherous excerpts in the brass repertory. Section intonation and balance, along
with a unified sense of articulation, style, and phrasing are of the utmost importance here, and
the resulting transparency of texture and process allows even the most disengaged listener to
really hear what is going on. Without accuracy of imitation and precision of attack, a
performance of this section loses its effectiveness and, one might argue, its meaning. I am not
implying that Bartók was the first to address these ensemble issues; rather, I am suggesting that
these issues of ensemble are emphasized in order to challenge and showcase the performer while
drawing in the audience as an integral participant in realizing the performance. Bartók's use of a
fugal fanfare for brass instruments—a not altogether common occurrence—challenges the
performers as a section to produce a cohesive and collaborative sound that, when executed
correctly, is not only complex and impressive but also enjoyable and engaging from a listener's
perspective, especially given the almost heroic sense of conquered musical treachery.
Collective virtuosity also plays an important formal and aesthetic role in the second
movement, Giucco delle coppie (or "Game of the Couples"), which consists of a succession of
paired instruments performing playful motives (see Figure 3). The movement begins with a
rhythmic ostinato for side drum, followed by a pair of bassoons (pickup to m. 8). The color here
is created by the parallel movement of the two bassoons, usually at the interval of a minor sixth.
Virtuoso demands for the bassoon duo include identical approaches to articulation, phrasing and
dynamics (especially mm. 13–14 and mm. 16–22), unified trills, and intonation (see Example
2a).[56] Next, the oboes present their own dance theme (beginning of m. 25; see Example 2b).
The character changes, with an emphasis on staccato as opposed to slurred figures. Like the
bassoon duo, the oboes play parallel gestures separated by a specific interval (here a major third)
to create a distinctive color profile. Again, clarity of articulation, phrasing, and dynamics are of
the utmost importance. Collective virtuosity also serves as an organizational principle here,
defining each motivic iteration via specific ensemble concerns. Bartók transforms these
seemingly mundane ensemble considerations into a movement-long exploration of orchestration,
cycling through different instrumental groupings and exploring the importance of color as both a
formal and stylistic rubric as well as a virtuoso element in and of itself. Through continuous
variation of timbre, rhythms, harmony, and texture, this movement addresses the difficulty of
execution and resulting aesthetic associated with collective virtuosity. Moreover, the evocation
of "the folk" through modal cadences and parallel fourths and fifths gives the movement a
particularly "exotic and appealing" flavor consistent with other readings of the piece.[57]
The dance moves to two clarinets, separated by a minor seventh (see Example 2c). The clarinet
theme places an emphasis on rubato, and the accompanying ritardando sixteenth-note triplets
and quintuplets make the passage exceedingly difficult to coordinate (m. 46). Their dance theme
ends with parallel, oscillating sixteenth notes that seem to disappear completely into the
interrupting texture of lower strings, emphasizing the stark contrasts in timbre afforded by a full
orchestra. A flute duet follows, at the interval of a perfect fifth (m. 60; see Example 2d). In
addition to the collective virtuosic elements mentioned previously, this passage contains other
distinctive challenges, including chains of parallel sixteenth-note triplets (slurred in mm. 73, 76,
and 82; multiple-tongued in mm. 77–80, depending on tempo) and a septuplet (m. 81).
Additional complications created by several shifts in tempo make this excerpt especially difficult
to play, despite the deceivingly simplistic texture. An ossia (or alternate) part is provided in the
score for performers who cannot execute the original effectively. A duo of trumpets then enters,
varying the opening dance motif (m. 90; see Example 2e). Bartók's colorful soundscape features
the muted trumpets playing identical subjects a major second apart and second violins
alternating portamento figures (mm. 90–104, second and third divisi). Coordinated phrasing,
dynamic and articulation contrasts, and precise intonation are imperative if the trumpets are to
project collective virtuosity in this movement. After a brief chorale for trumpets, trombones, and
horns, Bartók returns to the initial bassoon melody, but with a countermelody in the third
bassoon tripping along beside (beginning m. 165). A thicker contrapuntal texture featuring
pairings of oboes with clarinets and then flutes with clarinets, together with trumpets and side
drum, bring the movement to a close.
Graph: EXAMPLE 2c Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 2, Clarinets I and II, mm. 45–
57.
Graph: EXAMPLE 2d Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 2, Flutes I and II, mm. 59–84.
Graph: EXAMPLE 2e Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 2, Trumpets I and II, mm. 90–
120.
The chain-like presentation of folkish themes in the Concerto's second movement is unique in its
juxtaposition of game-like pairs, each emphasizing elements of collective virtuosity through
various aspects of ensemble playing.[58] This is especially evident in the recording of the
original 1944 broadcast of the work, in which contrasts and extremes of all sorts (tempo,
dynamics, articulation, and timbre) are abruptly highlighted in almost rhapsodic fashion, much
more so than we might expect in a normalized modern performance.[59] Although much of the
thematic content within the movement is not individually virtuosic or difficult, the parallel
orchestration and presentation of these themes nevertheless addresses an important aspect of
collective virtuosity—the production of musical figures that are difficult to execute as an
ensemble, suggesting a heightened level of musical teamwork. The result connects Bartók's
Concerto with other works, not least Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945, less
than a year after the premiere of Bartók's Concerto), with its emphasis on individual orchestral
choirs. What differentiates Bartók's movement, however, is the clarity and purpose with which
he showcases the brilliance of each pair and enlists orchestration (and, by proxy, the orchestra) in
lieu of traditional formal constraints. According to the composer's own program note, the "game
of pairs" represents the most explicit treatment of virtuosity as a fundamental and engaging
element of music.[60]
The fourth movement, Intermezzo interrotto, continues to challenge the orchestra as an ensemble
of soloists, juxtaposing six different time signatures (5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8, 2/4, and 3/4), several
instances of polyrhythm, and numerous transitions in tempo and texture to interrupt (interrotto)
any sense of continuity. According to Boston Symphony Orchestra archivist Bridget Carr, the
trombone glissandi in measures 90–91 instigated an evolution in the instrument itself. In 1944
the B♭ bass trombone's low register ended on low C (concert B♭), making Bartók's gesture
impossible to play (this can clearly be heard on the original broadcast recording).[61] Some ten
years later, Boston Symphony Orchestra bass trombonist Kauko Kahila customized his
instrument with a second trigger and elongated tubing to extend the instrument's range to low B
(concert A), thus allowing for Bartók's glissando to be played as written and marking a now-
permanent evolution in the instrument's physical makeup and functionality.
Perhaps the most evocative excerpt from the Concerto, however, is its Finale, which features a
virtuoso display of musical dexterity and color throughout, making the fifth movement a
"concerto for orchestra" in the truest sense. Bartók uses solo, soli, and tutti combinations to
purposefully exploit individual musicians, sections, and the entire orchestra as embodiments of
virtuosity. Indeed, the remaining music challenges and showcases the virtuoso orchestra while
remaining relatively approachable for audiences, affirming the concept of collective virtuosity
through a series of memorable themes and gestures.
After an opening fanfare in the horns, the now-famous perpetuum mobile theme takes center
stage, continually returning throughout the 625-bar movement (see Example 3). Prefaced by
resonant pizzicato chords in the violas and cellos, half of the second violins (usually four stands)
enter in measure 8 with the technically challenging theme, followed four bars later by the
remainder of the section. Successive entrances by members of the first violin section in measures
16 and 21 create a crescendo throughout, over a continuous eighth-note accompaniment. At the
marked tempo of 134–46 quarter notes per minute, this theme presents musicians the opportunity
to engage the audience aurally and visually through frenzied excitement, as the entire section
saws away to create an almost visceral effect. The audience's visual perception of energetic
playing stimulates an awareness across senses, heightening its engagement with the musical
experience. Both the difficulty and the ensuing effect of the passage are compounded by Bartók's
marking, punto d'arco, which asks the string players to play at the tip of the bow to create a non
spiccato (legato) line that is deceivingly challenging.[62] Downes was surely referring to this
passage when he quipped: "There were places where the whole string choir had to be so many
Heifetzes; when the whole orchestra, singly and en masse, did feats of derring-do."[63]
To be sure, how Bartók challenges and showcases the orchestra with familiar gestures is critical
to the concept of collective virtuosity. In measures 88–92, Bartók combines his skittish string
theme with an apparent homage to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in the winds and brass, injecting
color and rhythmic variety into an already complex texture that showcases the complete
orchestra.[64] Dialogue between and within the ensemble's sections continues, with scalar
passages moving between flute (m. 96), oboe (m. 98), clarinet (m. 101), piccolo (m. 104), and
winds and strings (mm. 112–18). The texture dissipates as quickly as it grew, however, fading
into a succession of fugal wind solos in measures 148–61. As the music continues, the second
trumpet enters with an alteration of an earlier theme (m. 201), shining through the dense texture.
The first trumpet then answers in exact inversion (m. 211). Pealing trumpets continue to trade
phrases, sounding as a single, continuous line when their note lengths, phrasing, and sounds
match up correctly. This section culminates with an angular and virtuoso theme in the winds and
first trumpet (mm. 234–43) that overwhelms the audience with sonic brilliance.

THE CONCERTO'S LEGACY REVISITED

With collective virtuosity as a governing concept, Bartók's Concerto has become a staple of the
orchestral repertory. Audiences have been drawn into the work's accessible musical language,
marked by recurring memorable themes, lively rhythms, transparent orchestration, and colorful
textures. Moreover, the Concerto addresses the broader expectations of the symphony orchestra
and its concertgoing public. The examples of collective virtuosity discussed herein illuminate not
only Bartók's Concerto but also the virtuoso Boston Symphony Orchestra—a collaborative
"community of sound" emblematic of the evolving American orchestra industry.
Throughout Serge Koussevitzky's tenure as music director, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
developed its own brand of collective virtuosity as an ensemble and institution. By the 1940s, the
orchestra had fostered a reputation as the world's most virtuosic ensemble, attaining "near
perfection" in its live and broadcast performances.[65] Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony
Orchestra also took up the task of a public institution to engage and educate their audience.
Indeed, according to one orchestra scholar, "the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra ...
has been one of not only developing a world class orchestra, but also of educating an
audience."[66] While the juxtaposition of modern compositions and mass audiences may seem
far-fetched today, Koussevitzky mediated between modernists and audiences in an attitude of
respect for both.[67] In a letter to Koussevitzky's wife, Olga, conductor (and Koussevitzky
protégé) Leonard Bernstein speaks to this very point:
Music has changed [since Koussevitzky's death]; there is so much more of it, so many more
people listening to it, and listening differently. Works that were still thorny and forbidding then
are every-day classics now. And so largely due to him, to his stubborn insistence on
commissioning them, and on playing them ... Bartók, Stravinsky, Copland.[81]
Koussevitzky's commitment to the orchestra's institutional development and the popularization
of art music in general is thus as remarkable as it is fundamental. Bartók's Concerto can be
understood as part of this effort, a widespread preoccupation in the country at the time that
contributed to the development of a distinctly American orchestral culture.
The positive critical and popular reception of Bartók's Concerto should come as no surprise,
given its successful marriage of modernist and populist aesthetics. The first published review of
the work, dated December 2, 1944, insists that
every man in the orchestra, not to mention Dr. Koussevitzky, must be congratulated for their
technical feat in the mere negotiation of the work, while the conductor and the orchestra cannot
be praised enough for endowing it with such great musical feeling.... If a composition of
transcendent musical art may be defined as one which is a summation of all that has gone before,
then the Orchestra Concerto is a work of art ... and a great one.[82]
The initial set of performances (December 1 and 2, 1944) was repeated and broadcast across the
nation almost immediately (December 29 and 30), prompting one reviewer to hail the work as "a
combination of great simplicity and extreme contemporary complexity," while another asserted
that the "performance was admirably taut and precise ... such as only a virtuoso orchestra can
achieve."[68] Two weeks later, the piece was given its New York premiere. Perhaps most
remarkable of all, the Concerto was consistently placed on the second half of the concert
billing—a rare occurrence for modern works, which were more often played before intermission,
and thus rarely broadcast.[69]
The Concerto continued to thrive into the second half of the twentieth century, systematically
challenging and showcasing the virtuoso orchestra as it continued to develop into one of the
nation's foremost cultural assets.[70]Following World War II, Bartók's music continued to grow
in popularity throughout America, thanks in part not only to the support of other artists but also
in response to the contagious success of the Concerto. Fellow countrymen Szigeti and Fritz
Reiner were especially vigilant in their continued advocacy of Bartók's music after his death.
These actions culminated in the resurrection of previously unheard works, including the
"Portrait" for Violin, Op. 5, and several tribute events that featured the likes of Szigeti, Reiner,
Koussevitzky, Downes, Virgil Thomson, Langston Hughes, and Marc Blitzstein.[71]
According to critic Cyrus Durgin, "the conventional view of the music of Béla Bartók [could] be
expressed thus: It's awfully modern, don't you think?"[72] For many, this view changed upon
hearing the Concerto. While postwar programming of Bartók's music began largely with the
accessible works of the late 1930s and 1940s, pieces from earlier on gained increasing attention
as well.[73] To invoke the words of musicologist Beth Levy, "the power of populism to
transform both a piece and a career" mirrors the aspirations of contemporary audiences.[74]
Although Levy writes here about Aaron Copland, she could just as well be referring to Bartók
and his Concerto for Orchestra, which is too often neglected when discussing the popularization
of art. During the winter of Bartók's career, the Concerto helped to reinvigorate the composer
and his legacy, paving the way for a broader audience and proving that accessibility is not
antithetical to artistic integrity. Its success both as an artistic masterpiece and a cultural product
can be understood more fully through the lens of collective virtuosity, which combines musical
and social perspectives to shed new light on the Concerto and its significance to twentieth-
century musical culture.

Footnotes
1 Joseph Horowitz, Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution
Transformed the American Performing Arts (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 118.
2 The present version of this article benefited from conversations with numerous colleagues,
including Roland John Wiley, Mark Clague, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Michael Hicks, Carl
Leafstedt, and Alison DeSimone. I would also like to thank Deborah Kauffman for her patience
and support in helping to prepare musical examples and shepherding this work through to
publication.
3 For more on Bartók's American years, see Tibor Tallián, "Bartók's Reception in America,
1940–1945," trans. Peter Laki, in Bartók and His World, ed. Peter Laki (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1995), 101–18.
4 According to the League of American Orchestras annual report, Bartók's Concerto ranked
tenth in the number of performances of a work written after 1908, with fourteen sets in 2006–
2007 (each set usually consists of three subscription concerts). Only four works written after the
Concerto received more performances: Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, 1959 (22);
Shostakovich's Festive Overture, 1954 (19); Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, 1944 (16); and
Bernstein's West Side Story Suite, 1957 (15). The data are representative of similar reports
available from the previous decade (League of American Orchestras, "Orchestra Repertory
Report: 2006–2007 Season" [2007], accessed 26 February
2008, http://www.americanorchestras.org/knowledge%5fcenter/orr%5fcurrent.html.
5 Olin Downes, untitled article, The New York Times, June 15, 1924, 5.
6 The murky relationship between so-called modernist music and accessibility, and the fallacious
contention that the two concepts are mutually exclusive or exist at two poles, represents an
oversimplified historiographical truism rooted in the contemporary perceptions of artists and
critics, and thus will not receive explicit attention here. When invoked further on, the term
"modernist aesthetic" refers to the intentional "shattering of expectations, conventions,
categories, boundaries, and limits" that would inspire "new systems of pitch organization as
alternatives to tonality and ... technological advances" (Leon Botstein, "Modernism," in Grove
Music Online, ed. L. Macy, http://www.grovemusic.com. proxy.lib.umich.edu, accessed 20
February 2008.
7 Jennifer DeLapp, "Speaking to Whom? Modernism, Middlebrow and Copland's Short
Symphony," in Copland Connotations: Studies and Interviews, ed. Peter Dickinson (Woodbridge,
England: The Boydell Press, 2002), 87.
8 Nick Taylor, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to
Work (New York: Bantam Books, 2008), 286.
9 Kenneth J. Bindas, All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project
and American Society (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 65.
Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2007), 262.
Ibid., 300.
This was American composer Roger Sessions's response to an increasingly consumer-centric
society. For a more detailed discussion of how these economic shifts changed the face of music
(and its institutions) in America, see Ayden Wren Adler, "Classical Music for People Who Hate
Classical Music": Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, 1930–1950 (Ph.D. Diss., University of
Rochester, 2007), 115–16.
Koussevitzky's role in this story should not be marginalized, although his commitment to new,
accessible music was tempered by a disdain for jazz and most popular "low brow" music. This
attitude is showcased in the following recollection: "During the first few months of my work here
in America, I met a New York Composer, George Gershwin ... I confess that I did not then think
the Rhapsody in Blue suitable for concert performance by a great symphony orchestra. I was
wrong. Later I became aware of this and asked Gershwin to compose a piece for the Boston
Symphony [his Second Rhapsody]" (Serge Koussevitzky, "American Composers," Life Magazine,
April 24, 1944, 55). In truth, while the Second Rhapsody received its concert premiere in Boston
on January 29, 1932, it existed first (in part) as a film score. For a detailed explanation of the
work's genesis, see James Wierzbicki, "The Hollywood Career of Gershwin's Second
Rhapsody," Journal of the American Musicological Society 60/1 (Spring 2007), 132–86.
This is not surprising, considering that the concept of a composer's "late style" often involves a
move away from the adventuresome and toward the conservative. For more in-depth coverage of
Bartók's late style and biography, see Agatha Fassett, Béla Bartók: The American Years (New
York: Dover Publications, 1970); Malcolm Gillies, "Bartók and Boosey & Hawkes: The
American Years," Tempo, New Series 205 (July 1998), 8–11; Horowitz, Artists in Exile; and
Donald Sturrock, dir., After the Storm: The American Exile of Béla Bartók (A BBC/MTV
Hungary Video Production, distributed by Kultur, 1989).
Danielle Fosler-Lussier, Music Divided: Bartók's Legacy in Cold War Culture (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2007), 73.
Ibid., 23–24.
Tallián, "Bartók's Reception in America," 113.
This assertion is based on the dramatic increase in the number of Bartók performances in the
early 1940s and 1950s, which suggests a renewed interest in the composer's entire oeuvre. A
truncated American reception history is cataloged in Malcolm Gillies, "Bartók in America,"
in The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, ed. Amanda Bayley (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2001).
Gillies, "Bartók in America," 190–201.
David Cooper, Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
26.
Roger Fowler, Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (Leeds, UK: Mayflower Enterprise, 1987), 31.
Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, full score (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1997), 148.
It is not unusual that Szigeti's letters to Koussevitzky indulged the conductor's notorious ego.
This particular letter, dated April 2, 1945, also links Bartók's more recent works with a new,
"attractive" style; Béla Bartók Correspondence (2), Box KMF, Koussevitzky Foundation
Archives, Music Division, Library of Congress.
John N. Burk, "Salute to a Symphony Leader," The Christian Science Monitor, October 9, 1943.
It is worthwhile to note that, while Koussevitzky's support of young composers and their music is
legendary, so too is his temper, which was especially sensitive to negative critique. For an
entertaining explication of Koussevitzky the man, see Nicolas Slonimsky, Perfect Pitch: A Life
Story (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Other orchestras and conductors certainly cultivated virtuosic identities, although I would argue
not to the same degree. For instance, Zoltán Kodály's Concerto for Orchestra showcased the
formidable musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Nevertheless, both works are
brilliant, technically challenging, and accessible. Bartók was surely aware of Kodály's piece,
having brought the manuscript to the United States in 1940 (thanks to Carl Leafstedt for this
revelation). In this article, I propose that Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and
Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra represent a particularly acute, even heightened, case of
collective virtuosity as I have defined it here—because of the historical and cultural context of
1940s America, the biographical contexts of Bartók and Koussevitzky, and the publicity
associated with the piece and its premiere.
Olin Downes, "Boston Symphony Plays New Work," New York Times, February 15, 1936, 19.
Letter to Koussevitzky dated April 26, 1946, Box 27/9, Roy Harris 1946–53, Koussevitzky
Foundation Archives, Music Division, Library of Congress.
A review by Olin Downes regarding the New York premiere is marred by the critic's inability to
get to the concert in time to witness the entire performance, although Downes calls the symphony
"colorful" and "expressive" (Olin Downes, "New Work Given by Koussevitzky," New York Times,
March 12, 1939, 60).
Aaron Copland, What to Listen for in Music [1957] (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), 190.
"A Talk with Aaron Copland," interview by Phillip Ramey, in New York Philharmonic Program,
November 20, 1980, 19.
According to the composer, as stated in Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis, Copland Since
1943 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), 68.
Elizabeth Bergman Crist, "Aaron Copland's Third Symphony from Sketch to Score," The Journal
of Musicology 18/3 (Summer 2001), 377–405.
Elizabeth Bergman Crist, Aaron Copland's Third Symphony (1946): Context, Composition, and
Consequence (Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 2000), 134.
As quoted in Donald Sturrock's documentary After the Storm.
According to Carl Leafstedt, the Concerto was not performed until December 1944 because
Koussevitzky wanted to align the work's premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra's annual
residency at Carnegie Hall, which usually occurred in early January. Considering that the
Concerto was not finished until October 1943, a premiere date only two months later would have
neither allowed the publisher to furnish parts nor provided the musicians an opportunity to
adequately practice.
For more on Koussevitzky as virtuoso conductor, see Rufus Hallmark, "The Star Conductor and
Musical Virtuosity," in The Orchestra: A Collection of 23 Essays on its Origins and
Transformations, ed. Joan Peyser (New York: Hal Leonard, 2006), 545–76.
"America Now the Homeland of Great Orchestras," New York Times, September 16, 1923, X6.
The 1956 reference stems from Howard Taubman, "No Two Alike," New York Times, November
18, 1956, 41.
Bartók reiterated this sentiment a year later in a letter to his wife, in which he compares
performances of his Rhapsody, Op. 1, by European (London Symphony Orchestra) and
American (New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra) ensembles; Malcolm Gillies, "A
Conversation with Bartók: 1929," The Musical Times 128/1736 (October 1987), 557, 559.
This quotation of British musicologist Henry Raynor appears, with no specific citation, in
Hallmark, "The Star Conductor and Musical Virtuosity," 557.
Koussevitzky, "American Composers," 56. In an article published several months later,
Koussevitzky is quoted thus: "The best players are here [in America].... From this material, only
produced here, can you make the best orchestras in the world" (Olin Downes, "Koussevitzky:
Mentor of Young Composers," The New York Times, July 23, 1944, 14).
This writer, Charles Edward Russell, is quoted in Joseph Horowitz's history on American
classical music (Classical Music, 269). Horowitz responds by noting: "Russell was correct to
claim the virtuoso concert orchestra as a distinctive American achievement, remarkable in a
country born more recently than Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. But his claim was also curious, the
equivalent of Germany calling the Berlin Philharmonic its musical 'sign of honor' rather than,
say the symphonies of Beethoven, or Austria calling the Vienna Opera its 'foremost' cultural
attainment, rather than, for instance, the operas of Mozart." Joseph Horowitz, Classical Music
in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company,
2005), 269.
There is an argument, of course, for America's historical identification and association with the
"maverick"—a rogue individualist or pioneer who blazes new paths. In music, this has referred
historically to artists who were often marginalized from accepted cultural practice (such as John
Cage, Lou Harrison, and Henry Cowell). In other words, it is only in retrospect that audiences
connect and identify with mavericks.
Horowitz, Classical Music, xiv.
Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001) focuses
on the history of performance, while others have associated a tradition of maverick artists with
American music.
Richard Taruskin and Piero Weiss, Music in the Western World: A History of
Documents (Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, 1984), 340.
For a more extensive overview of how management theory might be applied to orchestras and
their respective operating models, see Michael Mauskapf, "The Liability of Being Elite:
American Orchestras in the Twentieth Century," Music Research Forum 25 (Fall 2010), 35–60.
See Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), and "Art as
Collective Action," American Sociological Review 39/6 (1974), 767–76.
Mark Marotto, Johan Roos, and Bart Victor, "Collective Virtuosity in Organizations: A Study of
Peak Performance in an Orchestra," Journal of Management Studies 44/3 (2007), 388.
Interestingly, one of the case studies this article deals with, West Side Story, was conceived by a
"virtuoso team" comprised of Jerome Robbins (choreographer), Arthur Laurents (writer),
Stephen Sondheim (lyricist), and Leonard Bernstein (composer); see Andy Boynton and Bill
Fischer, "Virtuoso Teams," Harvard Business Review OnPoint (Spring 2008), 88.
Paul Bekker, The Story of the Orchestra (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1936), 286.
Another historian, Robert Fink, likens the fusing of multiple instrumental performers in
minimalist music to the collective virtuosity exhibited in Bach's Brandenburg Concerti. But the
author simply mentions the term in passing, failing to adequately define collective virtuosity
within its musical and social contexts; see Robert Fink, Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal
Music as Cultural Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 169–90.
"No instrument has difficult passages to perform, but only an extremely secure, practiced
orchestra animated by a single spirit can dare attempt this symphony." See E.T.A.
Hoffmann, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 12/40–41 (July 4 and 11, 1810), 659; translation by
F. John Adams Jr. in Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, ed. Elliot Forbes (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1971), 163.
Quoting Thomas in Horowitz, Classical Music, 36.
This phenomenon is touched on in Fosler-Lussier, Music Divided, 92.
V. A. Howard, Charm and Speed: Virtuosity in the Performing Arts (New York: Peter Lang,
2008), 45.
In the autograph manuscript, now held at the Library of Congress, Bartók marked every
articulation and phrasing nuance individually, rather than invoking the term simile. This choice
makes the score visually striking and virtuosic.FIGURE 3 Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra:
Structural diagram of Movement 2, Giucco delle coppie.
Graph
*In his original program note from the Boston premiere, Bartók himself calls this final
recollection of the movement's opening themes a recapitulation.EXAMPLE 2a Bartók, Concerto
for Orchestra, Movement 2, Bassoons I and II, mm. 8–24.
Graph
Some of my observations related to collective virtuosity in this movement are drawn from my
own experience performing this work, while others (including this quote) come from
conversations with other performers, including Jeffrey Curnow (assistant principal trumpet,
Philadelphia Orchestra).EXAMPLE 2b Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 2, Oboes I
and II, mm. 25–44.
Graph
The use of newly composed, folk-like snippets to create a musical texture is a technique also used
by Stravinsky in Rite of Spring. For more on this, see Richard Taruskin, "Russian Folk Melodies
in The Rite of Spring," Journal of the American Musicological Society 33/3 (1980), 501–43.
Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, sound recording, Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, original broadcast, BSO Archives, December 30, 1944.
Reprinted in Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, 148.
Evidence suggests that Bartók was not only aware of an instrument's possibilities but also the
musical capabilities of individual performers. At least one section in the Concerto's Finale
reveals a connection between composer and performer that holds genuine significance regarding
the work's genesis. Roger Voisin, long-time principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, was in his prime when Bartók wrote his Concerto. During a rehearsal of the work,
Bartók decided to re-orchestrate a disjunct and thorny excerpt in the fifth movement for trumpet,
after Voisin accidentally played cues that were originally written for clarinet. Bartók chose to
alter the scoring only after experiencing and preferring the performance Voisin offered,
indicating an important, if tacit, dialogue between composer and performer. While the practice
of altering musical details to fit a particular ensemble may not be unusual, this anecdote
suggests that Bartók's compositional choices were linked directly to the virtuoso abilities and
reputations of players in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. See Michael Arndt, The Extraordinary
Roger Voisin: His Life and Contributions to Trumpet Performance, Repertoire, and
Pedagogy (DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2004), 104–5.
This statement is based on a conversation with Allegra Wermuth, principal second violinist with
the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.EXAMPLE 3 Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Movement 5,
mm. 1–21 (perpetuum mobile theme, strings only).
Graph
Olin Downes, "Bartók Concerto Introduced Here," The New York Times, January 11, 1945.
The corresponding part in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring occurs at Rehearsal 104.
This is evinced both through the press release reproduced in Figure 1 and a featured spot in The
March of Time, a short documentary on the Boston Symphony Orchestra sponsored
by Time magazine. The subtitle of this press release, "America's Pioneer Symphony Orchestra
Now Plays for All America," speaks to the popularization of orchestras in America through
radio, recordings, and the aforementioned aesthetic shift. The documentary opens with the
following assertion: "The best measure of America's newly found musical maturity is the Boston
Symphony, brought to near perfection under constant rehearsals under its famed conductor
Serge Koussevitzky" (as featured in Sturrock, After the Storm).
Richard Sanborn Morgan, "Critical Reaction to Serge Koussevitzky's Programming of
Contemporary Music with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1924–1929" (M.A. Thesis, North
Texas State University, 1982), 18.
Leopold Stokowski articulates this simultaneous need for artistic advancement and a connection
with audiences in Music for All of Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943).
Rudolph Elie Jr., "Music Review," The Boston Herald, December 30, 1944, and Cyrus Durgin,
"Music Review," The Boston Globe, December 30, 1944.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcasted hundreds of concerts nationally during
Koussevitzky's tenure, but broadcasts almost invariably consisted of traditional so-called war
horses by composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner, which appeared during the
second-half of most concerts. Contemporary works were, for the most part, only afforded a slot
on the first half of the program, and were not broadcast.
Through 2008, Boston has performed the Concerto on 144 sets of subscription concerts (a rate
of nearly twice each year!), with numerous additional performances at the Tanglewood Music
Festival and four commercial and broadcast recordings (data drawn from the Concerto's Work
Performance History, courtesy of Bridget Carr, senior archivist of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra Archives). The dates and conductors of the recordings are December 30, 1944
(Koussevitzky); October 13, 1962 (Leinsdorf); November 27, 1973 (Kubelík); and March 24,
1994 (Ozawa).
Béla Bartók Correspondence (including letters and press releases written by or for Serge
Koussevitzky, József Szigeti, and Louis Rittenberg), Box 3/28, Koussevitzky Foundation Archives,
Music Division, Library of Congress.
Cyrus Durgin, "Music Review," The Boston Globe, December 4, 1944.
Fosler-Lussier, Music Divided, 72.
Beth Levy, "From Orient to Occident: Aaron Copland and the Sagas of the Prairie," in Aaron
Copland and His World, ed. Carol J. Oja and Judith Tick (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2005), 340.
J. Peter Burkholder, "The Twentieth Century and the Orchestra as Museum," in The Orchestra:
A Collection of 23 Essays on its Origins and Transformations, ed. Joan Peyser (Milwaukee, WI:
Hal Leonard, 2006), 431.
János Demény, ed., Béla Bartók Letters (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 325–26.
Virgil Thomson, "Copland as Great Man," New York Herald-Tribune, November 24, 1946, 6.
Béla Bartók Documents, Box KMF, Koussevitzky Foundation Archives, Music Division, Library
of Congress.
Adler, "Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music," 133–34.
Henry-Louis De La Grange, Gustav Mahler: A New Life Cut Short (1907–1911), vol. 4 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1217.
Leonard Bernstein Correspondence (November 14, 1959), Box 6/6, Koussevitzky Foundation
Archives, Music Division, Library of Congress. Six years earlier, Bernstein remarked in a
program note that "Koussevitzky was more than a great conductor of a great orchestra, he was a
man of music par excellence. On all sides he slaved for music—for young composers, for
'difficult' composers, for young performers, for state subsidies, for scholarships, for top-level
education, for a mass audience.... We do not honor him tonight; he is honored every time this
orchestra makes a beautiful sound, bearing witness to the great contribution he made to the
dignity and advancement of the orchestra." Leonard Bernstein, Program from 1953 Koussevitzky
Memorial Concert with the Israel Philharmonic, Bernstein Correspondence, Koussevitzky
Foundation Archives, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Rudolph Elie Jr., "Music Review," The Boston Herald, December 2, 1944.
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By Michael Mauskapf