Sheng Cai - Bartók - Piano Concerto No 1, Sz 83 (3rd Mvt.) Jalisco Philharmonic

Sheng Cai plays Bartók Piano Concerto No 1, Sz 83 (3rd Mvt.) II. Andante - attacca Follow Sheng Cai on Facebook Recorded live on October 18th, 2015 Notes; The work premiered at the fifth International Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Frankfurt on July 1, 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&Rhapsody had to be substituted into the program. The Concerto eventually premiered in the USA on February 13, 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 in 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&output, the piano is used percussively. 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."