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The music of Bela Bartok is not for everyone. He filtered Hungarian folk material through a rather dissonant prism. I’ll listen attentively when the concert is broadcast live on Friday night, but I won’t run out and buy this piece. It’s his Sonata #2 for Violin and Piano, Sz. 76.
Violinist Ida Levin, scheduled to play this piece on Friday, is one of the few non-liberals among the classical artists I’ve met. One of her proudest moments was performing at the White House for Ronald Reagan with Rudolf Serkin playing piano. Serkin had a tendency to get the jitters before a concert, and Reagan had a way of putting people at ease. He talked to the two of them backstage, calmed Serkin down, and Ida was surprised that Reagan knew her father, a judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court at the time. The judge, by the way, has an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz, and he’s educating Ida’s son about the art of working around chord changes.
Ida turns 50 this year, and I have to tell my favorite Ida story.
A few years ago, we were leaving a post-concert party in Seattle’s Belltown at the same time. As we approached a corner, I did the gentlemanly thing and offered Ida my arm to cross the street. She took it but said, “You do know I’ve been crossing the street alone since I was at least 20.” I said, “But Ida, that was only five years ago.” She laughed uproariously, and I went up ten points in her estimation.
Bartok: Sonata #2 for Violin and Piano, Sz. 76, first movement
