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The Musical Language of Bartók's 14 Bagatelles for Piano

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Elliott Antokoletz
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Extract

Bartok's musical language may be approached from two points of view—one, in which the concepts and terminology are derived from folk-music sources, and the other, in which the concepts and analytical tools are derived from certain currents in contemporary music. The present essay is intended to demonstrate, through a study of selected pieces from the 14 Bagatelles for piano, opus 6 (1908), that the assumptions underlying both approaches are essential in understanding the evolution of Bartók's musical language, and that fundamental relationships exist between the diatonic folk modes and various abstract pitch formations commonly found in contemporary compositions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 137 , June 1981 , pp. 8 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 The term ‘series“ usually denotes an ordered succession of elements, such as the Schoenbergian twelvetone set. Although Bartók's music is based on unordered non-twelve-tone sets, i.e. which have fixed intervallic content but not ordering, the means by which he establishes connections between the melodic and harmonic levels are closely related to those found in serial compositions. This definition is given by Perle, George, in Serial Composition and Atonality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p.40Google Scholar.

2 Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Suchoff, Benjamin (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), p.338Google Scholar.

3 ibid., p.84.

4 ibid., pp.334–6.

5 See Perle, , op. cit., n. 1, above, p.26Google Scholar.

6 Bartók, , op. cit., n. 2, above, p.336Google Scholar.

7 ibid., p.433.

8 ‘Octatonic’ refers to an eight-note scale based on regular alternations of whole-tones and semitones. There are altogether three different octatonic scales: C-D-EЬ-F-F#-G#-A-B; C#-D#-E-F#-G-A-BЬ-C; and D-E-F-G-G#-A#-B-C#. Because of its cyclic intervallic properties, the starting point for each is arbitrary.

9 According to Perle, , op. cit., n. 1, above, p.9Google Scholar, a ‘cell’ is a ‘microcosmic set of fixed intervallic content, statable either as a chord or as a melodic figure or as a combination of both’. Its components, however, are not fixed with regard to order in Bartók's works.

10 This term was first used by Treitler, Leo, ‘Harmonic Procedure in the Fourth Quartet of Béla Bartók’. Journal of Mucic Theory 3 (11 1959), pp.292–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and first explored in depth by Antokoletz, , Principles of Pitch Organization in Bartók's Fourth String Quorter, Ph.D. dissertation (City University of New York, 1975)Google Scholar. An extract of the latter is published in the University of Michigan Journal, In Theory Only 3/6 (09 1977), pp.3–22Google ScholarPubMed.

11 Bartók, , op. cit., n. 2, above, pp.323–4Google Scholar.