Béla Bartók seventy years after his passing

Out of curiosity, I am reporting what I wrote in the notes to the Béla Bartók catalogue on my website:

Béla Bartók attempted several times throughout his life to organize the classification of his compositions, curiously restarting the numbering from one each time and creating quite a bit of confusion.

The numbered compositions can be divided into three distinct groups which, for ease of consultation, we have distinguished with different colors in the catalogues:

1890 - 1894 from op. 1 to op. 31

1894 - 1898 from op. 1 to op. 21

1904 - 1924 from op. 1 to op. 21

After 1924, Bartók definitively ceased numbering his works.

I don't know why, but this interesting information is normally ignored. To be precise, in the case of the Rhapsody for piano Opus 1, one should specify "Third series" since there are 3 op. 1s:

Waltz for piano op. 1 (1890)

First sonata in G minor for piano op. 1 (1894)

Rhapsody for piano op. 1 (1904)

Thank you Daniele for this initiative on a great 20th-century composer who currently seems a bit forgotten to me.

Thanks also to Terenzio for the useful information regarding the numbering. It seems one can assume that these various restarts from number 1 are like "new beginnings" of the compositional activity.

«(...) I recognized that the Hungarian songs erroneously considered popular, which were actually art songs (...), offered little interest. Thus, in 1905, I began to investigate peasant Hungarian music, which until then was almost entirely unknown. In this field, much to my fortune, I met Zoltan Kodály, who, thanks to his foresight and judgment, helped me in all sectors of music with many warnings and advice of inestimable value (...)».

Bartók began to frequent shepherds, swineherds, and peasants and, through them, discovered that cultural background made up of ancient songs but also of heavy contemporary misery: «(...) The study of all this peasant music was of decisive importance to me, because it made possible my liberation from the tyranny of the major and minor system in force until then. In fact, the largest part, and the most precious, of the melodic material collected was based on ancient ecclesiastical or Greek modes, or even on primitive scales (precisely pentatonic); furthermore, it was rife with the freest and most varied rhythmic formations, with changes of rhythm for performance, sometimes using rubato time, sometimes strict time. I realized then that the ancient modes, now out of use in our art music, had lost none of their vitality. Their reuse allowed for new types of harmonic combinations. Such use of the diatonic scale led to the liberation from the rigid exclusivism of the major and minor scales and had as a final consequence the possibility of freely and independently employing all twelve sounds of the chromatic scale (...)». Then also: «(...) I am convinced that each of our folk musics (...) is a true model of the highest artistic perfection. In the field of simpler forms, those melodies are masterpieces to me in the same way that in larger forms a Bach Fugue is (...)».

In this climate, in 1908, the following were born:

14 Bagatelles for piano Opus 6,

true and violent, polemical breaking points toward that musical style from which, until that moment, he had drawn his lifeblood: the nineteenth-century tradition. Not only do truly popular Hungarian songs burst into his compositional world, but also the Expressionism of Debussy, Ravel, and Schönberg, and, obviously, Stravinsky.

«(...) When, at Kódály's encouragement, I came to know and began to study the compositions of Debussy, still in 1907, I realized with amazement that even in his melodies, pentatonic motifs corresponding to those of our folk music play an important part. We must certainly attribute them also to the influence of a folk music from Eastern Europe, probably Russian. In the compositions of Igor Stravinsky, similar tendencies are perceived; it seems therefore that our era shows identical currents even in territories geographically furthest from one another: the refreshing of art music with those elements of peasant music that the compositions of recent centuries have left intact (...)».

Enjoy the listening and ... see you next time!

Zoltan Kodáli

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Espressionismo

I have always loved Bartók enough to play all six volumes of Mikrokosmos for myself

I also played the six volumes of Mikrokosmos. They were the textbook for the piano school I attended years ago.

I did them years later on my own initiative

One could say that the String Quartets stood to Bartók in a manner exactly opposite to how the Piano Sonatas stood to Beethoven. In fact, if for Beethoven the Sonatas constituted a pioneering path of research within the musical realm before he ventured into other genres, for Bartók the Quartets constituted the summary, as they almost always put the final word on one of his ways of composing.

That being said, I think it is undeniable that just as for the genius from Bonn, the quartet genre was among his crowning achievements, for Bartók too, they are indispensable as they constitute the highest peak of this genre in the twentieth century.

The first was the Quartet Opus 7, composed starting from 1908 and completed on January 27, 1909.

This Quartet represented for Bartók the summary of what was his youthful period. In it, the composer referred back to counterpoint but, highly significant and important, not only within the scope of his own musical history but also, more generally, in the history of music, was the fact that he did not turn to the greatest contrapuntal exponent in history—Johann Sebastian Bach—when composing it, but rather to the quartet writing of the late Beethoven.

This is important because after Beethoven, none of the composers who followed succeeded in understanding what his ultimate message was: all referred to the Opus 59 quartets, and only Bartók, for the first time, exactly 72 years later, knew how to pick up where Beethoven left off.

The Hungarian's First Quartet has a clear resonance with the "free polyphony based on variation" of a strictly Beethovenian character, and this is because: "(...) To establish his own polyphonic style, Bartók does not artificially turn to Bach (...) as the neoclassical tendency will soon do (...). Bartók does not like to mask himself and therefore seeks to reconnect directly, without discontinuity, to the latest experiences of instrumental polyphony that are still internally significant, charged with an expressive scope not yet extinct, not yet definitively cataloged in the historical archives of musical style. The polyphony of the late Beethoven will be the springboard from which Bartók will move toward the constitution of one of his main stylistic hallmarks: that counterpoint we shall call germinal or self-integrative, based on the slow turning of musical cells, similar to the tingling of the constituent particles of matter (...)" (Massimo Mila: L’arte di Béla Bartók. Bur saggi)

From the very first notes, the reference is quite clear: the Adagio ma non troppo of the Quartet in C#- Opus 131, but also the Molto Adagio (Canzona of thanksgiving offered to the divinity by a healed person, in a lyrical way) of Opus 132; and in this latter case, it might not be at all coincidental, given that the composition of the First Quartet occurred right after convalescence and recovery from a serious illness.

"(...) The instrumental writing shows some early and timid experiments on a path that Bartók will follow to the end: the exploration of noise and the creation of sound, of a timbre, that is, different from the traditional quartet voice through the use of all the performance resources of string instruments (alternation of staccato and legato, pizzicato, glissandi, tremolos, playing on the ponticello, etc.). This will be one of the master paths of Bartók's art: the creation of sound placed on equal footing with melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic invention." (Massimo Mila: L’arte di Béla Bartók. Bur saggi)

Enjoy the listening and ... until next time.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

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Daniele's interventions are excellent; integrating little with what has already been said, it is interesting to note that from an exquisitely pianistic beginning (pianist from 1909 to 1923), Bartók then dedicates himself to ethnomusicology and composition.

Like many in 1940, for political reasons, he emigrated to the United States where he continued his musical activity until his death. Like Stravinsky, in my opinion, distance strengthens the bond to one's homeland... perhaps in an era when that still mattered (I was reflecting on nowadays).

For me, the synthesis between different compositional strands derived from both art music and folk music is interesting and admirable, one of the three main trends of the early twentieth century to break out of the tracks of tonality. In this regard, the compositions presenting folkloric influences are:

Suite No. 2 for orchestra (1905-1907)
Hungarian Folk Songs for voice and piano (1906)
Allegro barbaro for piano (1911)
Suite for piano (1916)
The six volumes of “Mikrokosmos” (1926-1939) are simultaneously a didactic and artistic work where the use of folk song serves as a model for a new music that must also have a moral and civil role, thus open to the world.

Even though the good Kodály has already been mentioned, I find this collaboration interesting because it is precisely thanks to Kodály's advice that Bartók had the opportunity to get to know Debussy's style, which will soon be present in the compositions “Two Portraits” for orchestra (1907-1909) and in the opera “Bluebeard's Castle” (1911), a theatrical work based on a Hungarian translation of a text by Maeterlinck that tells, with rich textual and musical symbolism, the story of Judith, wife of the cruel Bluebeard, who approaches death by opening seven closed doors. The opera pairs vocal writing linked to Hungarian tradition fused with musical elements of the Western tradition. In his compositions, Bartók also approaches European expressionism through the use of a very advanced harmonic language, based on polytonality and the use of fourths, triads with major sevenths, and the insertion of unusual sound effects.

Thus, the tonal scheme is often used with the “polar path” in which, halfway through a piece or a movement, the key furthest from the home key is reached, only to return to the initial domain. Subsequently, both the First Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and the “Sonata” for piano (1926) bring him closer to the neoclassical trend.

I like to remember the main compositions of our friend Béla (I know many have already been mentioned)... but it has its charm to read them in a row:

Six String Quartets (1908-1939)
The Miraculous Mandarin (1918-1919) ballet for orchestra.
Eight Improvised Pieces on Hungarian Peasant Songs for piano (1920)
First Violin Sonata (1921)
Tanzsuite for orchestra (1923)
Secular Cantata (1930) for solo voices, double chorus, and orchestra.
Music for Strings, Celesta, and Percussion (1936)
Violin Concerto (1937-1938)
Concerto for Orchestra (1944)
Piano Concerto (1945) unfinished.

... we were talking about the rapprochement of Bartók and Kodály, which is also interesting because they contributed to the development of ethnomusicology which, thanks also to the discovery of the phonograph, collected and cataloged not only songs but also all those elements (scientifically) linked to customs and traditions (see the work “Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae”). Note that the original “captured” sources were then reworked by various schools.

And as Daniele mentioned, this link between ethnomusicology and romanticism is very strong thanks to the national schools; two great examples are precisely the Russian and the Hungarian ones. The circle closes because they themselves were dedicated to valuing folk traditions understood as belonging to a certain people characterized by the same:

Language

Customs

Traditions

Songs

Dances

@nicolasfredda: I do not perceive this oversight; consider that in music history courses, particularly in the first half of the 1900s, Bartók is quite a fixture, always paired with Schoenberg and Stravinsky; furthermore, as the good Antares reminded us, any good pianist should have gone through Mikrokosmos. I think many have listened to Music for Strings, Celesta, and Percussion. Probably many laypeople do not know the author or the title, but they have certainly had opportunities.

In general, as with all 20th-century composers (let's not talk about the composers of our century), there are fewer opportunities to be proposed to a large audience that has an exquisitely tonal culture and, to be clear: late Baroque, Classicism, and Romanticism.

Having said all this, however, as a listener, I would like to propose the much-loved (by me, obviously) sonata for two pianos and percussion,"

unfortunately I am not in a position to post a link, if someone would like to provide one, it would be very helpful to me

EDIT

Thank you Micamahler for the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjJtJAXPBE

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjJtJAXPBE

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Thank you Frank for your contribution, which I was sincerely counting on.

If you remember correctly, in Milan, during a conversation, we mentioned Bartók and that is where the desire began to mature in me to talk about this composer who, as I have already said, I feel very close to my sensibilities.

Of many of the works you cite, I will not fail, gradually, to speak because they are indisputably the masterpieces of this composer.

Thank you all!

It is inevitable: the appearance of a new art on the scene brings as an obvious consequence the end of the old one. Thus, throughout Europe, true societies were born, aimed at asserting these new trends in opposition to the old guard.

Bartók, together with Kodály in his country, founded the New Hungarian Music Union, which however failed to assert the new music and facilitate its performance. It was during this period that that short and sensational composition for piano was born, which took the name of

Allegro barbaro

which scandalized the Hungarian capital, starting precisely from the title, which seemed almost a rejection of civilization. What later surprised listeners was the systematic nature of an action that never stops.

Bartók intended it as primitive and indeed it is based almost solely on what is the primary element of music: rhythm; furthermore, the percussive fury of the sound escapes modern tonal scales to return to archaic ones. For about three minutes, the piano is transformed into a double percussion instrument: in addition to the obvious striking of the hammers on the strings, the artificial striking of the pianist's fingers on the keys is added.

Kodáli

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Bartók cared deeply about highlighting all the things that made him resemble his favorite composer: Beethoven. Among these was certainly the fact that both were predominantly instrumental composers and that both composed a single opera that is not ranked among the most important works from their pens but which, nevertheless, is highly precious for its intrinsic meaning.

“Bluebeard's Castle” one-act opera Opus 11

Composed in 1911, it only went on stage in 1918. Terenzio provides very important information and also the text on his website.

So why is this opera so precious in its intrinsic meaning?

The choice of subject was already significant. The composer had the plot elaborated by his friend Béla Balász, which was drawn from a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck: Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, which in turn was inspired by the famous fairy tale by Charles Perrault. As early as 1907, the composer Paul Dukas composed his own opera drawing inspiration from this poem, but there are practically no resonances of any kind between the two works.

In reality, Bartók's work finds more resonance with Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), also based on another poem by Maurice Maeterlinck: not only was the Hungarian composer's intention to create an equivalent, in his language, of the perfect melodic declamation created by the French in theirs, but the judgment that Judith expresses from the very beginning is the same lament as Mélisande's; both stories take place in the rooms of a castle and if Mélisande is upset that there is no light in it, no openings or windows, Judith must observe that the walls of Bluebeard's castle are thick and opaque and prevent light from filtering through, lacking windows and presenting a series of seven hermetically closed doors; one could say that both these dwellings descend from Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher: in all these works, the houses and Bluebeard's castle have the characteristics of a tomb for all its inhabitants.

The castle has true human traits. The walls are damp, but not with water, but with sweat, and they seem to weep; vegetal, animal, and even human aspects overlap: it is all the suffering they have had to witness. When the first door is opened, one enters the torture chamber with horror, and the walls exude rivulets of blood, and the music presents it to us with a trill of violins under a shrill cry from the brass, and the dissonance is assigned to the muted trumpets. Blood is also present at the opening of the second door which leads to the armory: a fanfare of horns, trumpets, oboes, and clarinets, and this time the dissonance of blood is assigned to the horns. The third room is that of the treasure, a treasure full of blood: an accord of trumpets and a tremolo of strings while the dissonance of blood moves restlessly in the flutes, oboes, and clarinets. The fourth door leads to a magic garden whose roses have bloodstained stems and the earth too is bloodstained: the strings vibrate and tremble. The fifth door leads to a terrace where one can see all of Bluebeard's lands where «the clouds cast bloodstained shadows». The lands are described musically by the full orchestra, reinforced by the sound of the organ, and here, the reference is to the great chords of Claude Debussy's La Cathédrale engloutie. The sixth door opens onto a lake: a lake made of tears. Judith opens the seventh door but, surprised, unlike what she imagines and fears seeing, in this last room there are no signs of pain but there are, alive, Bluebeard's three previous women: one for each phase of the day: the first he met in the morning, the second in the afternoon, the third in the evening, and the fourth—she, Judith—whom he met at night.

Seven are the doors, as seven are the days in which God created the world, seven are the days of the week, seven are the notes of the diatonic scale. Overlapping all this is the number three, namely the Trinity, which awaits the fourth section to be completed.

Judith is the queen of the night who dominates in beauty and wealth over all others. Bartók's opera, unlike Mozart's, marks the triumph of the night, a very long and terrible night that announces the blood and tears that will soon affect humanity: the First World War, and unfortunately... the cannon still thunders!

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sitotestoBéla BalászMaurice MaeterlinckAriane et Barbe-BleuefiabaCharles PerraultPaul Dukas

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Claude DebussyMaurice MaeterlinckLa caduta della casa degli UsherEdgar Allan Poe

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Claude Debussy

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Certainly another thing that linked Bartók to his beloved Beethoven was the love for Nature, a love that he also extended to the sea, beyond the mountains and the countryside. Sun, water, trees, meadows constituted for him an attraction and a true faith of his own. He believed greatly in astrological influences and Béla Balász fondly recalled an entire night spent with him by moonlight talking about these subjects.

It was Béla Balász himself who provided him with the plot for the ballet

The Prince Sculpted in Wood Opus 13

Started in 1914 and finished in February 1915, and on Terenzio's site, other information regarding this can be found.

Béla BalászBéla Balász

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sito di Terenzio, si possono trovare in merito altre informazioni

A couple of historical recordings

Bartók plays Bartók Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (from "Mikrokosmos")

Bartók plays Bartók Suite opus 14

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Forget the sewing machines that one hears playing Bartók today!! This is what rhythm is, and not just simple accents (stomped) that are heard nowadays. Bartók was a great pianist and an exceptional performer not only of his own compositions but also of other works!

The disappointment that his opera, Bluebeard's Castle, was not staged was very bitter for Bartók. This fact caused him a true compositional drought and, in 1913, no opera came from his pen. He seriously contemplated changing professions and dedicating himself heart and soul to the scientific research of collecting and studying folk songs. But, in reality, this compositional abstinence instead created the prerequisites for a new musical language. In 1915 he began working on his Second Quartet but, before finishing it in 1916, he composed the

Suite for piano Opus 14

and, in this case too, you can find related information on Terenzio's website.

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sito di Terenzio

Bartók was deeply shaken by the war events that bloodied Europe between 1914 and 1918 and, in 1916, his own family was involved, fortunately without serious consequences, during the Austrian retreat in Transylvania, where the composer, his wife, and their young son usually spent their holidays while he went in search of local folk songs.

His

String Quartet No. 2, Opus 17

composed between 1915 and 1917, fit perfectly into this framework of events and feelings that pervaded the composer during that period.

It is divided into three movements: a Moderato, an Allegro molto capriccioso, and a Lento but, in reality, their designations only ever refer to the beginning, as they all proceed with accelerations and decelerations, thus characterizing themselves with a mobility completely new compared to the previous classical and romantic styles.

The Moderato is the movement that more than the others recalls Bartók's romantic roots, while the Allegro molto capriccioso is actually a Scherzo that strongly reminds one of the Allegro barbaro I have already mentioned.

But it is the Lento that recalls the war events more than anything else. This "20th-century funeral march," as Massimo Mila defined it, is full of despair, desolation, and pain.

As always, more information on this Quartet can be found on Terenzio's website.

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sito di Terenzio

It was months of chaos that marked the historical events of Hungary after the end of the First World War and the subsequent fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1919, a communist republic led by Béla Kun was established for just over 6 months. The Hungarian avant-garde musicians: Zoltan Kodály, Ernő Dohnányi, Béla Reinitz, and Bartók himself, sided with this regime, forming a musical Directory whose task was to renew the nation's musical life. In the worst of communist traditions, the regime was stained by atrocities, and Bartók was deeply embittered by it, losing many illusions.

The regime collapsed and was replaced by the "restoration" which, obviously, also hit the musical circles that were once again taken in hand by more traditional composers. Disciplinary punishments followed, affecting the entire former Directory. Bartók was certainly the least affected: he merely requested a six-month school leave, and this ensured that no other sanctions were rained down upon him.

It was in this historical and psychological climate that the one-act pantomime was born:

The Miraculous Mandarin (or Prodigious Mandarin) Opus 19

which we more improperly know by the name of "The Wonderful Mandarin."

As with the opera "Bluebeard's Castle," an opera in one act Opus 11, one might ask: what did Bartók want to tell us? What is the moral to be drawn from this pantomime?

I will say immediately that this is the only work that takes place in a city of the Hungarian composer who, as I have already said, always turned to Nature in its various forms.

The scene takes place inside a squalid and filthy room where three ill-intentioned, destitute men exploit a girl so that she may prostitute herself to plunder unfortunate men.

The first is an old knight who is driven away by the three scoundrels because he cannot achieve anything with the girl.

The second is a poor, shy young man who is very much liked by the girl but has only one "small flaw": he is completely broke and, therefore, he too is rudely chased away and the girl is reprimanded.

The third is our Mandarin: an absolutely repugnant being who transmits a sense of disgust to the girl. The three criminals force the girl to submit to what they consider her duty. Amidst shivers of hesitation, the young woman's erotic dance of seduction begins, becoming increasingly bold until she falls into the Mandarin's arms. But the sense of filth prevails and she tries to flee. The Mandarin, completely caught up in the erotic game and the girl's beauty, chases her with all his strength; he falls but, having risen, reaches her: this scene is characterized by "a fugato over an ostinato of percussion, in the tension of a monstrous crescendo" which, along with Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps, represents some of the most impressive compositions for large orchestra at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The three criminals tear the girl from the Mandarin's hands, rob him, and then decide to kill him by suffocating him with pillows. However, the Mandarin does not die. At this point, they stab him three times with an old rusty sword: the Mandarin, though faltering and exhausted, does not die this time either: throughout all this turmoil, he never took his eyes, greedy with desire, off the girl. At this point, they decide to hang him from the chandelier, but his body begins to emit a blue-green light and his eyes incessantly look at the girl with the same desire and the same lust.

The girl looks at the Mandarin and understands the truth: he can never die until she gives herself to him. And she, driven by an act of pity, gives herself to him, and he dies after a brief agony.

I think that the moral of this story is precisely this: we can die in peace only if we have succeeded in inspiring an act of love and pity in someone other than ourselves. And that act of love and pity redeems both the one who receives it and the one who performs it.

Béla KunZoltan KodáliErnő DohnányiBéla Reinitz

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Beautiful comment. I would want to steal it from you to add it to the comment I already have on the site.