As the Concerts from the Library of Congress series approaches the final months of its centennial celebration, staff will share several memorable episodes from the series’ history here on “In the Muse.” The first in this series recounts the famous story of how Joseph Szigeti, one of the great violinists of the twentieth century, and composer Béla Bartók came to connect with the Library. This story was originally written by David H. Plylar of the Music Division’s Concert Office, and is featured in the forthcoming book “Let the People Hear It: Concerts from the Library of Congress at 100” (Library of Congress, 2025).
Joseph Szigeti (1892–1973), one of the great violinists of the twentieth century, performed Beethoven’s famously challenging “Kreutzer” sonata with Alfred Cortot at the Founder’s Day concert on October 30, 1926—the first so called in honor of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge’s birthday. But it was Szigeti’s appearance with his Hungarian compatriot Béla Bartók at the piano in April 1940 that became the stuff of legend.
The program opened with the “Kreutzer” sonata, followed by the Debussy violin sonata and Bartók’s Rhapsody no. 1, closing after the break with Bartók’s second violin sonata. The recital by Bartók and Szigeti was a long time in the making; the publicly anti-fascist Bartók sought to leave Europe in the volatile political landscape of 1939, and his correspondence with Music Division Chief Harold Spivacke reveals that he was worried about his family and his country. He wrote,
I wonder if you know our situation here? We see that small countries are invaded from one day to another quite unexpectedly by the most terrible armies and subjected to tortures of every kind. As for my own country, now, instead of one dangerous neighbor, we have got two of them; nobody knows what will happen the next day. It may happen, if I leave my country for America, that I can’t return, can’t even have news from my family.
Correspondence with Spivacke covers details of the program coming together and the logistics of booking Bartók’s passage to the United States. Ultimately Bartók was not only able to perform at the Library, but was able to immigrate to the United States later that year; he lived in the United States for the remainder of his life.
Szigeti continued to advocate for his friend after their landmark performance at the Library, lauding Koussevitzky for commissioning Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (held in manuscript at the Library) and encouraging the influential conductor to perform more of his music, as Bartók suffered from poor health at the end of his life. Szigeti wrote in part that “If you should decide to give his ‘Music for Strings [, Percussion] and Celesta’ the performance that only you and your orchestra can give of such an exquisite tonal texture, that would be not only a great artistic deed but also an act of healing!”
Note 8/29/2025: This version corrects a typo in the second paragraph.