Divertimento

Paul Sacher commissioned the Divertimento for string orchestra in 1939 and lent Bartók a chalet at Saanen in which to write it. The score took fifteen days that August, immediately before the outbreak of war and the composer's departure for the United States; Sacher conducted the Basel Chamber Orchestra in the first performance the following June. The three movements set a concertino group against the full body of strings, in the manner of the baroque concerto grosso, with a dark, slow-moving central movement between two lighter outer ones.