- Composer: Béla Viktor János Bartók (25 March 1881 -- 26 September 1945) - Orchestra: Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin - Conductor: Ferenc Fricsay - Soloist: Géza Anda - Year of recording: 1960 Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83, BB 91, written in 1926. 00:00 - I. Allegro moderato - Allegro 09:22 - II. Andante - attacca 17:58 - III. Allegro molto For almost three years, Bartók had composed little. He broke that silence with several piano works, one of which was the 1st Piano Concerto. The work premiered at the fifth International Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Frankfurt on 1 July 1927, with Bartók as the soloist and Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting. The scheduled 1927 American premiere in Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic, on a tour by Bartók, was canceled by conductor Mengelberg due to insufficient rehearsing. Bartók's Rhapsody had to be substituted into the program. The Concerto eventually premiered in the USA on 13 February 1928 in the same venue, with Fritz Reiner conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Bartók as the soloist. The concerto comes after an increased interest on Baroque music on the part of Bartók, which is demonstrated by such devices as the increased use of counterpoint. The work, however, retains the harshness and dissonance that is characteristic of Bartók. Here, as elsewhere in Bartók's output, the piano is used percussively. The importance of the other percussion instruments is illustrated by Bartók's note, which was for years omitted in printed scores: "The percussion (including timpani) must be placed directly next to the piano (behind the piano)." Bartók wrote of the concerto: "My first concerto [...] I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and the public."