![]() In 1942, upon hearing that Bartók was both ill and destitute, Koussevitsky doubted Bartok would be up to the strain of writing a major work, but also knew that Bartók would not accept charity. Word of Bartók’s desperate situation finally reached Serge Koussevitsky, the visionary music director of the Boston Symphony, who did as much as any conductor in the 20th Century to commission and premiere important new works. Howard Hanson, the reactionary and xenophobic president of the Eastman School of Music, had turned away Bartók’s application for a teaching position in spite of his reputation as possibly the most important living composer and ethnomusicologist of his day. ![]() Since emigrating from Hungary to the US in 1940, Bartók had endured a period of terrible neglect, poverty and homesickness. William Primrose, maybe the most important violist of modern times, asked the then-ailing Bartók to write a concerto for his use in 1945. Béla Bartók- Concerto for Viola (1945) completed by Tibor Serly
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