
It was subsequently published as the first part of the orchestral work Deux Portraits, op. In the end, only the "ideal image" within this total concept was realized in the opening movement of a concerto.

Next to that of the "heavenly" ideal image, Bartók wanted to sketch the "humorous" portrait of a "tempestuous" and an "indifferent, cool and silent" Stefi Geyer. His original concept of the work called for three movements using variants of a "love chord of four notes": character variations reflecting the nature of the beloved. Bartók composed the concerto from his early years for Stefi Geyer (1888 1956), the beautiful and gifted violinist, with whom he had fallen in love. Totally different in quality, these two works are related in kind through the determining role of the variation principle.

The validity of Béla Bartók's quoted statement-"to deal with the same problems on an ever rising level, with correspondingly rising success"-becomes evident in a particularly convincing manner from the structural affinity of his two violin concertos: the one composed in 1907-1908 (not performed or published during the composer's life), and the accomplished masterpiece written thirty years later, 1937-1938. Listen to this page Béla Bartók's Working Method in Dealing with Proofs for His Violin Concerto (1937-1938)īartók himself once said to the writer of these lines that his artistic development might be likened to a spiral: to deal with the same problems on an ever rising level, with correspondingly rising success-this seemed to him the guiding principle of his development.
