Bartók

Up until a year or so ago, I didn't know much about Béla Bartók other than what I had learned from doing crossword puzzles. Apparently the letters B-E-L-A are in pretty big demand. For example: Elba (clue "ere I saw..."). Or: Able (clue "...was I"). I had seen crossword puzzle clues such as "Hungarian Bartók", or "20th century composer Bartók" so I knew that there was a Bela (actually, Béla) Bartók who was a Hungarian composer in the 1900s.


I noticed about a year ago that I enjoyed music with "Hungarian" in the title by Haydn, Schubert, Brahms and others. But I wasn't sure what it meant, and I got curious. If I were to listen to Schubert's "German Dances" (D.820) followed by his "Hungarian Melody" (D.817), what precisely would I hear in the latter that made it Hungarian?


Questions such as that will ultimately lead one to Béla Bartók. Born in 1881, Bartók gained early fame as a virtuoso concert pianist in the center of western music -- Vienna. Home to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Strauss, Vienna was the top destination for serious musicians. Bartók was awarded a scholarship in Vienna by the Emperor, but he shocked the music establishment by choosing instead to attend the Academy of Music in Budapest.


Bartók's intense interest in authentic Hungarian folk music is what kept him in Hungary. Working closely with his life-long friend and collaborator Zoltán Kodály, Bartók sought to establish a truly Hungarian national style. In order to do so, they decided to collect, catalog, and analyze authentic Hungarian folk music. How did they know it was authentic? They went out into rural Hungary, into the small towns and villages, and asked people to play for them for their recording device. (Bartók was a quiet reserved man, of an urban bent, usually fastidiously dressed. That he went out into these remote towns, and "let his hair down" in order to earn the trust of the villagers is testament to his strong interest.)


Bartók held this interest in folk music his entire life, which expanded from its initial focus on Hungarian peasant music to include Romanian, Slovak, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Turkish and even Arabic. One of Kodály and Bartók's initial findings: The so-called Hungarian music of earlier composers, referred to as the verbunkos style, was actually Gypsy music. Authentic folk music was far older, and was often played on native instruments that Bartók had never seen before. He found a similarity to ancient Greek music in these folk songs, to some extent because they are largely based on the pentatonic scale.


This was no passing interest. Bartók collected over 13,000 Hungarian folk songs in his lifetime; including the other ethnic strains, he (and Kodály) amassed over 20,000 folk songs. In doing so, what had previously been a strong nationalistic interest turned into a passion for music of the people, music that might bring nations together rather than drive them apart. His later compositional style was referred to as "Synthesis of East and West".


Bartók and Kodály were among most significant early figures in the field of ethnomusicology, the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts. Russian composers, led by Rimsky-Korsakov, were also trying to define and promote a true understanding of their native music at about the same time. One can hear the deep echoes of native lands in their music.


Here is what Bartók had to say about how he incorporated folk and peasant music into his compositions:

The question is, what are the ways in which peasant music is taken over and becomes transmuted into modern music? We may, for instance, take over a peasant melody unchanged or only slightly varied, write an accompaniment to it and possibly some opening and concluding phrases. This kind of work would show a certain analogy with Bach’s treatment of chorales. Another method is the following: the composer does not make use of a real peasant melody but invents his own imitation of such melodies. There is no true difference between this method and the one described above. There is yet a third way... Neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music. In this case we may say, he has completely absorbed the idiom of peasant music which has become his musical mother tongue. 

Bartók's post-romantic music doesn't appeal to everyone, especially to those not fortunate enough to have Hungarian blood flowing through their veins. But his unique blend of native folk music, rooted to the ancient lands, combined with the modern sound of the 20th century that was to bring unprecedented horror and dislocation, strikes a deep chord in our modern sensibilities.