Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106

Commissioned by Paul Sacher and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, this 1936 masterpiece is one of the 20th century's most perfectly constructed orchestral works. Bartók deploys two antiphonal string orchestras, piano, harp, celesta, xylophone, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, and timpani — but not a single wind instrument. The opening fugue, with its chromatic subject that unfurls across all twelve semitones, is a tour de force of polyphonic writing. The night-music of the third movement — celesta, piano, and percussion evoking an unsettling nocturnal landscape — anticipates Ligeti and influenced a generation of composers. The work is equally a landmark of 20th-century writing for strings, percussion, and the celesta.