Bartók's Chamber Music


Book Description

At first sight a work devoted to Bartók's chamber music looks as though it were simply concerned with a genre division attempting an exposition of no more than a single aspect of the whole oeuvre. But in Bartók's case the chamber music is not simply a matter of grouping according to genre-it is really the framework for his whole oeuvre. (From the introduction) "János Kárpáti one of the outstanding scholars in the field of Bartók research here presents a revised and expanded edition of his Bartók's String Quartets (Corvina Press 1975)."




Bartók's String Quartets


Book Description

"Béla Bartók's string quartets are 'key works': in them is reflected the stylistic development not only of his own art but of the music of a whole age, the twentieth century, and also of the string quartet genre itself. Each of the six string quartets represents a milestone in Bartók's creative path. They offer a faithful and comprehensive picture of the various periods in the composer's creative development, each bears the characteristic marks of these periods, showing as they do the direction taken by Bartók's orientations, the various influences and his own individual original methods. János Kárpáti's monograph on the one hand sets these works against the background of the whole history of the string quartet as a genre, thus indicating their position as the direct continuation of the late Beethoven quartets, and on the other hand it presents an exposition of the factors involved in Bartók's art, the trace of the influence of art music and folk music, of predecessors and contemporaries--placing Bartók at the head of the twentieth century masters as the distillation and summary of all that preceded him."--Dust jacket.







Concerto for Orchestra


Book Description




Bartók and His World


Book Description

Béla Bartók, who died in New York fifty years ago this September, is one of the most frequently performed twentieth-century composers. He is also the subject of a rapidly growing critical and analytical literature. Bartók was born in Hungary and made his home there for all but his last five years, when he resided in the United States. As a result, many aspects of his life and work have been accessible only to readers of Hungarian. The main goal of this volume is to provide English-speaking audiences with new insights into the life and reception of this musician, especially in Hungary. Part I begins with an essay by Leon Botstein that places Bartók in a large historical and cultural context. László Somfai reports on the catalog of Bartók's works that is currently in progress. Peter Laki shows the extremes of the composer's reception in Hungary, while Tibor Tallián surveys the often mixed reviews from the American years. The essays of Carl Leafstedt and Vera Lampert deal with his librettists Béla Balázs and Melchior Lengyel respectively. David Schneider addresses the artistic relationship between Bartók and Stravinsky. Most of the letters and interviews in Part II concern Bartók's travels and emigration as they reflected on his personal life and artistic evolution. Part III presents early critical assessments of Bartók's work as well as literary and poetic responses to his music and personality.




Béla Bartók


Book Description

This second edition ofBela Bartok: A Guide to Researchpresents a concisely detailed history of Bartok's musical development, a catalogue of his compositions according to genre (including basic data on Bartok's publishers, achives, library collections, and catalogues), and 1200 annotated primary and secondary sources. A decade of scholarship since the first edition (1988) is included; over forty percent of the material in the second edition is new. Four indexes cover listings by author and title; Bartok's compositions and his editions and transcriptions of earlier keyboard works; proper names; and subjects. Primary sources include: Bartok's own essays, articles, lectures on folk music and art music, letters, and other documents; his folk music collections; facsimilies, reprints, and revisions of his music; and his own editions and transcriptions of earlier keyboard music. Secondary sources include: biographical and historical studies, specialized studies of his personality, philiosophy, andpolitical attitudes; theoretic, analytic, stylistic, and aesthetic studies of his music; discussions of folk music influences and art music influences; studies of his compositional process (based on autograph manuscripts, editions, and his own recordings); discussions of his orientation toward pedagogy; and discussions of insitutional sources for Bartok's research (including archival and bibliographic sources, special issues, festivals, conferences, colloquia, concert programs, and computerized data bases for Bartok analysis and research. This annotated, topically-organizedGuideis the most extensive bibliographical research tool on Bartok. It is the first to draw together the most important primary and secondary bibliographic sources, which cover his varied activities as composer, ethnomusicologist, pianist, pedagogue, linguist, and editor. It is significant not only for those interested in musicological research into Bartok's compositional and scholarly activities but also for those interestedin ethnomusicological research methodology in general, and the study of Eastern European, North African Arab, and Turkish folk music in particular.




The Cambridge Companion to Bartók


Book Description

This Companion is an accessible guide to Bartók's music and is an ideal introduction to the composer for students, performers and concert-goers. Part I of the book sets out the cultural, social and political background in Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century, and considers Bartók's interest in and research into folk music. Part II surveys his compositional output in all genres, relating changes in style to broad aesthetic issues, his folk music studies, and his activities as a pianist, music editor and teacher. The final part reveals the wide variety of responses to Bartók's music in Europe and the United States, both during and after his lifetime. It includes a comparison of analytical approaches to his music and an evaluation of performances including those of the composer himself. The book is written by a team of specialists, who represent more recent thinking on the composer and his music.




Chamber Music


Book Description




Fourth String Quartet (1928)


Book Description

(Boosey & Hawkes Scores/Books). HPS 77




Indivisible by Four


Book Description

The author tells of his own development as a student, "of how he and his intrepid colleagues were converted to chamber music ... [and of how] four individualists master and then overcome the confining demands of ensemble playing."--Jacket.