03 December 2008

Bartok

Catching up on my Bartok notes. Many of the early works are not availble in score or recording and so I can only comment on the fragments presented in the Dille catalog.

1897
Scherzo or Fantasie for Piano (Scherzo oder Fantasie für das Pianoforte), Op. 18, DD 50
A grand scherzo in ABA form. It sounds like Brahms, but with a regularity born of Strauss. Satisfying for the player and for the listener, though not particularly adventurous harmonically. Incidentally, a sketch appears in Bartok's Greek textbook of the Odyssey.

1898
Sonata for Piano, Op. 19, DD 51
This is a big four movement sonata in the 19th century large scale format. Orchestral sonorities, almost like something MacDowell would do. It is firmly accomplished and would no doubt whet the appetities of many listeners. Demonstrates the Bartok is not coming out of nowhere, but is firmly within the tradition.

1898
Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 20, DD 52
The whole thing apparently exists down to the individual parts. It's in four movements in a prevailing C minor tonality, though the Scherzo is Eb and the the Adagio also outside the key. Again Brahmsian with orchestral texture in the piano.

1898
Three Piano Pieces (Drei Klavierstücke), Op. 21, DD 53 Adagio-Presto; (untitled); Adagio, sehr düster
#2 and 3 are published in "Der Junge Bartok" they are quite lovely, convential late Romantic works in the style of Brahms and Grieg. The Intermezzo has some elegant arch form, while the Adagio features a song-like feel and modal mixture.

1898
Three Songs (Drei Lieder), DD 54
In Eb flat opens with a gentle melody - why did they make these people write these songs when Schumann had created such a masterpiece?

1898
Scherzo in B Minor for Piano, DD 55
Nothing special scherzo and trio opens with a simple period. The trio is in nine eight with a pastoral opening.

1898
String Quartet in F Major, DD 56
In four or five movements, the Adagio opens with fugal entries, the Trio also seems quite nice in F# minor.

1899
Piano Quintet Fragments, DD B10 & B12
Very rich strong powerful fragments for piano quintet.

1899
Tiefblaue Veilchen for Soprano and Orchestra, DD 57
A rich beginning in D minor.

1899
Scherzo in Sonata Form for String Quartet, DD 58
A scherzo and trio seemingly it is in sonata form, the Trio seems like it might be more harmonically interesting.

1900?
Scherzo in B Flat Minor for Piano, DD 59
Very standard opening, again a scherzo and trio.

1900
Six Dances, DD 60
Six, seemingly fun, dances for piano. One was published in facsimile in the Pressburger Zeitung on Christmas 1913. The first and second were orchestrated as DD 60b.

1900
Valcer for Orchestra, DD 60b -- orchestrations of nos. 1 and 2 of DD 60
Orchestrations of numbers 1 and 2 of the above.

1900
Drei gemischte Chore DD 61a
Three mixed choirs for four and then six and six voices. Can't get muxh sense from the opening, thogh there is nothing harmonically special about these brief snippets.

1900
Was streift vorbei im Dammerlicht DD 61b
For men's choir, cannot tell much from this simple opening.

1900
Liebeslieder, DD 62 -- Diese Rose pflück ich hier (I pluck this rose), Ich fühle deinen Odem (I feel your breath)
Tho of the six of these are published in Der Junge Bartok. The first is a dramatic and rangy song in Eb minor its works its way up and up and then throws in a high Bb for good measure, a little bit much in what is otherwise a folksy-ish setting, kind of Brahms mets Mahler. The second is again somewhat over the top with as many as three contrapuntal lines against an unsupported melody, which while retaining standard late Romantic accented dissonances just is a bit too sweet. The remainders are in a similar vein. There is a sort of reuse of materials throughout - for instance, number 5 a nature-love song full of horn calls is refreshed in number six.

1900
Scherzo in B Flat Minor for Piano, DD 63
A quick and commonplace opening, the trio makes use of an interesting two against three beginning.

1901
Variations on a Theme by F.F. (Változatok F.F. egy témája fölött) for Piano, DD 64
Published in "Der Junge Bartok" this is a massive set of variations on a theme. It is full, strong, accomplished in the style of late Romantic rhetoric. Fit for a strong full piano and texutred as an orchestra. It sounds somehwat like early Brahms. Demonstrates Bartok's consumater skill of construction and sense of the instrument. Perhaps a bit overlong.

1901
Scherzo for Orchestra, DD 65
A two against three opening, the trio in the nasty F# Major.

1901
Tempo di minuetto for Piano, DD 66
Very closely related to one of the six dances DD60, nearly the same beginning.

1902
Four Songs, DD 67
These are four somewhat folksy sounding works, though there is tied up with them a good deal of late Romanticism. He seems caught in two worlds, but such a comment as that I just made is silly.

1902
Symphony, DD 68
The scherzo is recorded in the Hungaraton complete edition. It is a well orchestrated quick scherzo in a Dvorak manner - it almost sounds like one of the Slavonic Dances. This was the only movement of the symphony orchestrated by Bartok.

1902
Duo for Two Violins, DD 69
A small two voice contrapuntal study, short, only forty seconds in G major.

1902
Albumblatt in A Major for Violin and Piano, DD 70
A rather lovely work in the late Romantic style for violin and piano. It has some curious modulations (almost from nowhere, but they work). The center is a strong development of the opening and it ends in quiet. Bartok really has worked a strong sense of hamronic motion in his music.

1903
Four Piano Pieces (Négy zongoradarab), DD 71
These are four works for piano that are the sort of late romantic things that pass by on the radio and your mind wanders, you hear them but you don't listen and then they are over and you think, well that was fine, like Dvorak. Unobtrusive in a virtuosic way. Nothing special.

1903?
Andante in F Sharp Major for Violin and Piano, DD B14
What a lovely beginning, big rolled chords from which the violin emerges.

1903
Violin Sonata in E Minor, DD 72
Three movements and published in Documenta Bartokiana volume 1. The first movement is a solidly accomplished sonata with a fugue in the development. The second is darker, a slow movement in variaiton style. It begins rhapsodic and then takes the players through various "gypsy" styles - must be incredibly rewarding, it takes some risks that pay off. The third movment (not published in the volume) is a several times interrupted rushing and angular national, perhaps Slavis, that A minor-y feeling sort of thing that emphasizes the tonic on strong beats. In the end I'm torn about this music, it's immensely accomplished and sounds great, it must be a joy to play (though the piano part, like many of Bartok's early works, is quite difficult). With the exception of the second movement, it doesn't seem like Bartok is really doing anything special, nothing beyond Dvorak, Tchaik, or late Strauss, themselves all excellent composers. It has nothing to distinguish itself beyond simply being good. That said, still worth a listen.

1903
Est (Evening) for Voice and Piano -- lyrics by Kálmán Harsányi;
Published in Der Junge Bartok, this is a mass of augmented seconds and enharmonic spellings. It gets big in the center with quick chord arpeggiaitons in the piano and higher notes. It seems to want to be more than it is.

1903
Est (Evening) for Male Chorus, DD 74 -- text identical to the above, music entirely different
Completely different than the melodramatic song for voice and piano on the same text. Here this is a gentle work for male choir, almost in the mold of the much later Janacek male choir works, there isn't a sense of hard-core late romanticism, but rather a simple folksiness, without naiveté.

1903
Kossuth, Symphonic Poem in Ten Tableaux, DD 75a
A rather strong if studied tone poem. The overall sound world is like Richard Strauss and it has several strong moments, there is nothing really special in it, although the reused melody is solid and the orchestration is totally competant if in a seemingly studied way that may not be the best for the music. It tells the story of Lajos Kossuth a Hungarian revolutionary in the revolutionary year of 1848. The work was a big hit in Hungary in that it tied in with a sort of nationalist independence, which allowed the audience to look beyond things that we laughed at when it was premiered in England. Makes use of many Hungairan style figures as well. A rather important piece in understanding the development of Bartok.

1903
Marcia Funèbre for Piano, DD 75b -- arrangement of two sections of Kossuth (DD 75a)
Rich and elegant this works very well as a piano piece, requires a strong but not prodigious technique with the need for good separation of the hands. Makes use of the ornamenting of important notes school of folksiness.(A - G#-E-F-D-E-F for instance toward the end) A Schenkerian's dream!

1903
Four Songs, DD 76
Lost

1903
Piano Quintet, DD 77
A massive, repeat massive orchestral work for Piano Quintet in four movements each played attacca. It is vibrant and large with a strong opening gesture that begins a journey - this opening figure will emerge triumphant at the end and perhaps is found throughout the piece. The scherzo is a brash hemiola of an affair with true joke rhythms while the slow movement is a meditation on the whole-tone scale, its opening gesture is F#-C-D-E which he works with in a lovely way eventually teasing some E minorness out of it. Finally the final movement is a bold Gypsy dance that culminates, after a fugetta that appears at about the golden section of the piece, in the return of the opening material. It is said that Bartok got very angry and wanted to distance himself from this music, when some people told him they liked this better than what he had done since, he threw the score into a corner. The piano part is shockingly virtuosic and the string parts no less challenging, the type of thing that warrants an enormous applause and lots of sweat raking. Scholars tend to see in this the late version of Bartok's searching for a folk idiom, he had, like Liszt and Brahms before him (two clear forebears in this music) thought that the gypsy bands of Vienna were the true folk music of Hungary; he would soon start an investigation into this in Transylvania.


1904
Rhapsody for Piano, Op. 1, Sz 26
In the style of some of Bartok's other Hungarian works it begins with a rhapsodic improvisatory opening that evokes the violinist warming up the crowd and eventually erupts into a couple of bold dances before apotheosizing into a wooly pianistic rhapsody. This becomes pianisitc writing at its best with long lines, the full range of the instrument exploited and remarkably chordal figuration. It's a real crowd pleaser in a Lisztian sense. Once again, Bartok displays his powerful use of tonality and consumate mastery of late Romantic harmonic practice.

1904
Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1, Sz 27 -- arrangement of Sz 26
I'll admit I was never all that fond of this piece as a piano piece it is accomplished and the like, but it is also that sort of flashy thing that I find annoying. As a piano concerto it works better, the flashiness is more justified. Consequently, we have basically the framework of the earlier rhapsody, some things have simply been orchestrated (and I don't like what he's done to the tranquillo at page 16 of the score) other parts have added virtuoso flourishes within and between sections of the original. Nonetheless, I imagine it is still a crowd pleaser. I was unable to get a score and followed in the piano version.

1904
Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 2, Sz 28 ; also known as Burlesque
I couldn't see a score for this. It begins with a slow minor entrance and ventually moves into various somewhat programmatic sounding dances. If Bartok had continued along in this vein he would have become a pretty good Dvorak. For our sakes it is good that he didn't. A nice moment toward the end when the piano becomes introspective.

1904
Hungarian Folksongs (Magyar népdalok), Sz 29 --
#1 is published in Der Junge Bartok

1904
Székely Folksongs (Piros alma), Sz 30
Said to be the song that kicked off Bartok's passion for folk music when he heard a peasant singing it in the Slovakian countryside. Bartok sets the modal melody with a relatively staid Romantic-ish accompaniment. I don't have strong feelings about it.

1905
Petits morceaux for Piano, (DD 67/1)
Published in Der Junge Bartok

1905
Suite No. 1 for Orchestra, Op. 3, Sz 31
A long and very ambitious work for orchestra that shows the young Bartok trying to reach beyond a superficial folksiness. It is said that the folksiness of the early Bartok was the urban gypsy music that which he heard in the cafes, after hearing some non-urban folk he made his way to the coutnry to discover that the real was different than the urban. It's kind of like Chinese food, you can only - with rare exceptions - get the true Chinese food in China. This is definately a student work with great hopes - notice how he studiously combines the themes of the various movements in the finale. The themes are rough with a mix between gypsy improvisations - such as in the second movement and more off accented bits like in the third and fourth movement. Yet at the same time, there is still a good deal of Dvorak in the rhythms and Strauss in the overall sound and orchestration. As a whole it could be a crowd pleaser, but it remains rambunctious just a tad too much and could stand some editing - as noticed by the fact that in the revision of 1920 Bartok suggested eliminating certain portions.

1905
To the Little 'Tot' (A kicsi 'tot'-nak), Five Songs for Voice and Piano, Sz 32
No information

1906
Hungarian Folksongs (Magyar népdalok), Ten Songs for Voice and Piano, Sz 33 (BB 43/2?)
Bartok's first go at many of the Hungarian songs that he would return to several times over the course of his life. The settings of these ten are a big step from what he was doing before - it is almost like day and night. Wherea before, Bartok's harmonies tended toward the Straussian with a clear contrapuntal motion between chords, herehis harmonies are more blocky, there is less direct motion from one chord to the next. My guess is that the melodies of these chords could allow for multiple harmonizations, but tended to work best with simpler. Bartok tired of this, he was after all no longer writing the early works that he wrote while a young teenager, and sought new ways to bring out the modality of the meloies, the lack of leading tone, the gapped scales and the like. Also the rhythmic interest is there with the front accented rhythms. these would be very good recital fodder for a mezzo, and with an easy piano part.#4,5,6,8 are published in Der Junge Bartok. It is very difficult to determine which of these is Sz 33, which Sz 33a, which BB42 and which BB43 - suffice it to say these are the ones with the more full piano accompaniment.

1906
Hungarian Folksongs Sz 33a, BB 42/3
There are ten of these of which only four were published, all ten are included in the Hugaraton Complete Edition. These ten songs are harmonized in a much simpler vein - there are no piano preludes or postludes and often the accompaniment simply mirrorsthe vocal line or else add simple harmonies to it. It seems in a way to be th epolar opposite - artistically that is - of the Sz33 songs. The songs are left mainly to fare for themselves.

1906
Two Hungarian Folksongs for Voice and Piano, Sz 33b -- selection from Sz 33 made in 1906
Two small songs from the collection of Sz 33, perhaps? They are simpler in style but with a harmonic adventurousness, like those in Sz 33. #1 - Edesanyam Rozsafaja is published in Der Junge Bartok. #2 in Documenta Bartokiana 4 (1970)

1907
Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra, Op. 4, Sz 34
This second suite of Bartok's is a curious bird. It was revised in the 1940s and I'm not entirely sure how much of a revision there was. If the first suite seemed to be a compilation of folksongs, this second suite seems to take the folk song as a realm of possibilities, its motives become a gamut from which Bartok can draw his musical language and we end up with this work which uses folksy fragments but freely moves about in pitch area. There is a fugue in the second movement, the first has a quirky rhythmic feel and the fourth reminds me a little of Mahler. That said, these ideas seem ill-fitted to the suits they are wearing, the developmental stratergies of the late nineteenth century, motivic transformations, a not entirely well-juxtaposed fugue. Beyond that, I got a real sense that this music is orchestrated although orchestrated beautifully. One notes the unison oboes and clarinets to yield a peasant flavor as well as the long bass clarinet solo in the third movement. Ultimately, it seems a step toward something else - this is something I appreciate about Bartok, he is flailing, flailing beautifully, but not entirely certain where he is going.

1907
Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csik District (Három Csik megyei népdal) for Piano, Sz 35a
Fascinating little piece, three actualy, said to be trnscribed from a Sixty-year-old flute player of the Csik district. The idea being that this is the real-folk music. Bartok gives it a reliquary-like setting allowing it to shine with all its vagarities. The piano part is consistently in the upper registers and it is unlike anything Bartok had done before.

1907
From Gyergyo for Reed Pipe and Piano, Sz 35 -- arrangement of Sz 35a made in 1907
I love this version for reed pipe and piano - essentially the exact same as Sz 35 with the right hand assigned to the reed pipe.

1916
Four Slovak Folksongs for Voice and Piano, Sz 35b -- based on Sz 35, completed in 1916
Four settings of Slovak folksongs for mezzo and piano. Of the four the first is most effective. He treats the folksongs here quite dramatically and often provides long prologues and postludes. In the first, the postlude takes the form of a verse of the folksong missing the singer. Published in Der Junge Bartok.

1907
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1, Sz 36 -- begun in 1907, completed in 1908
Bartok wrote this in his early years and it was performed, but only published and performed again after Bartok's death. It is a two movement work with some charms. The opening movement is long ruminative slow taut and polyphonic. Beginning with a triad plus leading-tone figure - D-F#-A-C# he brings in parts of the orchestra with this melody, moving to B minor before returning to D. It's a tonal tour-de-force with somehow this odd counterpoint working togethe rin new ways. the second movement is not as successful, too much activity for the sake of activity that seems to episodic.

1907
Two Portraits (Két portré) for Orchestra, Op. 5, Sz 37
An oddly proportioned combination of two works that are found elsewhere. The first movement is the striking opening movement of the Violin Concerto Sz 36 while the second is the last of the Fourteen Bagatelles op. 6 orchestrated, which bears a certain resemblance to parts of one of the suite. While the firs tmovment is slow and stately and over ten minutes, the second is rustic and only two. What they share is the opening figure - an arpeggiated Dmaj7 chord.

1908
Fourteen Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 6
I feel like these fourteen miniatures are in a way akin to Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstucke - they are part of a genre of evocative miniatures that I'm not altogether fond of. It's almost as if here Bartok is calling into the question many of the standard notions of what consittutes musical discourse, including notation and genre. The opening work is bitonal, others features changing and accelerating metronome markings, clusters, ostinato; the more successful make use of folk songs. He also seems to have his own harmonic system at play - are they octatonic? There are Ivesisms - the off kilter carousel in #14 and the doppler shifted clanging in #5. I find them overall important and worthy of study but uneven.

1908
Ten Easy Pieces for Piano, Sz 39 -- composed in 1908:
These ten works plus on ededication are much more fun to play than they are to listen to. Many have painfully slow tempos, likely because of the pedagogic need, and many are in the style of thebagatelles, that I'm not very fond of. Bartok again uses that Major-Seventh chord (D-F#-A-C#) opening as he does int he violin concerto, in the very beginning of the quite odd dedication.

1908
Two Elegies (Két elégia) for Piano, Op. 8b, Sz 41 -- first version composed in 1908, completed in 1909
It is a shame that Suchoff's notes in the Dover edition are so right on because it makes my observations seem to be a rehash of his. First, Bartok as we've seen back in the piano accompaniments of even the earliest songs, tends to favoor the busy arpeggiated Romantic piano lines and in these works (which recieved a premiere nearly ten years after they wrre composed) Bartok returns to these roots, though mixed with the harmonic language he began exploring in depth only in the piano works of the previous few years. So there is a mix of Romantic technique and modernist language, which works here well. Second we have aother fixation on the Leitmotive from the violin concerto - what Suchoff calls the "Stefi Geyer" motive after the violin player with whom Bartok was in love. It with an added pitch becomes the chord of the second elegy - the chord that stays and returns as accompaniment tonic and activity - here A#-C#-E-G#-A. The remainder are long torridmelodies with lots of left hand: the left hand creates the activity that the right soars over.

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