Bartoks viola concerto has a particular history. Bartok was working on it alongside his third piano concerto. The piano concerto he managed to finish in score as far as till the last 8 bars. The viola concerto he left only in sketches when he died. He had the concerto clear in his head, said that the work left was of purely mechanical nature. Things went differently: Bartok died and Tibor Serly got the task of completing the work as a performable piece on stage, based on the sketches. He spent several years, and did in many ways an impressive work. The concerto as it became known, is Serlys version: Great music, but leaving an impression of not being finished. There are now also a couple of other versions published, by Nelson Dellamaggiore and Csaba Erdelyi, but the problem with all of them are:
1.Proportions.
First movement feels too long, last movement too short and thin in content.
2.There are 16 bars in the manuscript that no one have used. Super Bartok music, folky and catching motive, great and effective viola writing
3.Orchestration, grey and lean, Csaba Erdelyi so far the best.
4.Empty fields, places were the music is too thin,
not only in colour, harmony, and orchestration, but also in thematic and motivic activity.
5.Articulation, dynamics, character notes.
I will here go into the first three points
The two last points on separate document.
All bar numbers refer to the score of my edition.
For more information please download PDFs:
Bartok viola concerto text, point 1,2,3
