Bartók’s witty Concerto for Orchestra darts and dives across the orchestra, spotlighting each section as melodies race from one instrument to the next.

Bartók described the work as `apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement . . . to the life-assertion of the last one’. This `jesting’ refers to Bartók’s tongue in cheek quotation of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony. Bartók detested this piece, and made sure to give his borrowed theme an orchestral raspberry.

Philharmonia Orchestra – Bartók & Kodály