This
month Clef Notes is looking at music that was left unfinished, whether
intentionally, or as a result of the composer’s death. Last time we began looking
at the story behind Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto – a work left unfinished when
the composer’s life was taken in 1945 by leukemia. Violist William Primrose
commissioned the piece, and it wasn’t until 1949 that he finally premiered it.
But how did he premiere a work that was left as a sketch at the composer’s
death bed?
A
man by the name of Tibor Serly completed the two works left unfinished at the
time of Bartók’s death. The Third Piano Concerto was just about complete, only
needing minor adjustments in the final measures. The Viola Concerto, however,
was still in sketch form on manuscript pages. The only indication Bartók left
in regards to the instrumentation was that it should be “more transparent than
in the Violin Concerto.”
Serly
was the perfect person to take on such a task. A good friend of Bartók and a
violist, he understood how to compose for the instrument and knew the
composer’s style well. In order to complete the work, he had to piece together
the manuscript pages and figure out the order and exactly what Bartók intended
for this great concerto. Listen to the finished product here and comment with
how you think the piece turned out.
Did
you know that Tibor Serly played viola with our own Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra in the 1920s?
