The Concerto for Orchestra is one of Béla Bartók's best known pieces, and usually regarded as one of his best. Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a composer, pianist and collector of East European folk music. ...

It was written in response to a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation (run by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky) following Bartók's move to the United States from his native Hungary from where he had fled because of World War II. It has been speculated that Bartók's previous work, the String Quartet No. 6 (1939), could well have been his last were it not for this commission, which sparked a small number of other compositions, including the Sonata for solo violin and the Piano Concerto No. 3. Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky (July 26, 1874 – June 4, 1951), better known as Serge, was a Russian-born conductor. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...

The piece was written in 1943, the score being inscribed "15 August - 8 October 1943". It was premiered on December 1, 1944, in Boston, Massachusetts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. It was a great success, and has been regularly performed since. City nickname: Beantown, The Hub, The Athens of America Location in the state of Massachusetts Founded September 17, 1630 County Suffolk County Mayor Thomas Menino (Dem) Area  - Total  - Water 232. ... The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the worlds most renowned orchestras. ... Conducting is the act of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. ... Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky (July 26, 1874 – June 4, 1951), better known as Serge, was a Russian-born conductor. ...

Bartók revised the piece in February 1945, the biggest change coming in the last movement, where he wrote a longer ending. Both verions of the ending were published, and both versions are performed today.

The piece is in five movements:

1. Introduzione - a slow and mysterious introduction gives way to an allegro with numerous fugal passages.
2. Giuoco delle coppie (Game of pairs) - this movement prominently features the side drum which taps out a rhythm at the beginning and end of the movement. In between, pairs of wind instruments play short passages. In each passage a different interval separates the pair - bassoons are a minor sixth apart, oboes are in thirds, clarinets in sevenths, flutes in fifths and trumpets in seconds.
3. Elegia - a slow movement, typical of Bartók's so-called "night music".
4. Intermezzo interrotto (Interrupted intermezzo) - a flowing melody in with chaning time signatures is interrupted by a brash parody of the repeated theme from Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 featuring glissandi on the trombones and "laughing" woodwinds.
5. Finale - marked presto (fast), this is in parts a perpetuum mobile.

This is the best known of a number of pieces to have the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra. Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way the instruments are treated in a solistic and virtuosic way. For the use of the word in psychology see fugue state In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ... The snare drum or side drum is a tubular drum made of wood or metal with skins, or heads, stretched over the top and bottom openings. ... A wind instrument consists of a tube containing a column of air which is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set into the end of the tube. ... In music theory, an interval is the distance in pitch between two notes, the lower and higher members of the interval. ... Bassoon Playing range of a bassoon The bassoon is the tenor member of the woodwind family. ... Modern Oboe The Oboe is a musical instrument of the woodwind double reed family. ... A bass clarinet, which sounds an octave lower than the more common Bb soprano clarinet. ... This article pertains to the musical instrument. ... Trumpeter performing with the United States Air Forces in Europe Band The trumpet is the highest brass instrument in register, above the tuba, euphonium, trombone, sousaphone, and french horn. ... The time signature (also known as meter signature) is a notational device used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and which note value (minim, crotchet, eighth note and so on) constitutes one beat. ... In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ... Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich (Russian Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович) (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975) was a Russian composer of the Soviet period. ... Dmitri Shostakovichs Symphony No. ... Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a true glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an effective glissando). ... The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument in which sound is produced by blowing through a mouthpiece against an edge or by a vibrating reed, and in which the pitch is varied by opening or closing holes in the body of the instrument. ... This article is about a musical term. ... Although a concerto is usually a piece of music for one or more solo instruments pitted against an orchestra, several composers have written works with the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra. ... Origin Etymology Concerto (pl. ... A symphony is an extended piece of music for orchestra, especially one in the form of a sonata. ...