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Contrasts (Bartók)
Encyclopedia
Contrasts is a 1938
composition
scored for clarinet-violin-piano trio
by Béla Bartók
(1881-1945). It is based on Hungarian
and Romania
n dance melodies and has three movements with a combined duration of 17-20 minutes. Bartók wrote the work in response to a letter from violin
ist Joseph Szigeti
, although it was officially commissioned by clarinet
ist Benny Goodman
. Bartók's only chamber piece to include a wind instrument , the piece is frequently performed by the Verdehr Trio
and was recorded for their Making of a Medium Series.
, with one movement on each side with capacity for approximately four minutes running time. The first version of the work, titled Rhapsody, received its premiere on 9 January 1939 at Carnegie Hall
, with Szigeti, Goodman, and pianist
Endre Petri performing. Bartók subsequently added a middle movement and changed the work's title to Contrasts. Szigeti, Goodman and Bartók first performed the final, three-movement work at Carnegie Hall on 21 April 1940, and subsequently recorded it for Columbia. Bartók published the work in 1942 and dedicated it to Szigeti and Goodman.
The movements contrast in tempo
. The first movement contains a Cadenza
for clarinet and the last one for violin. The piece features examples of alternate or dual-thirds (C and C in an A triad):
This mixed thirds structure may be thought of as bitonal in that the major
and minor third
of a triad
are used. This structure may be extended through considering each third of the original triad as also being a possible third in a triad a half step in either direction. Thus C/D is a major third in an A major triad and the minor third of a B major triad:
Incorporated into the work are various Hungarian and Romanian dance melodies. The first movement begins with a lively violin pizzicato, after which the clarinet introduces the main theme, which is then varied. This theme is an example of the Hungarian dance
and music
genre "verbunkos", or recruiting dance. The genre of music was commonly played at military recruitings. The second movement is much more introspective and has a continuously shifting mood without a defined theme. The third is a frenzied dance that begins with a scordatura
(G-D-A-E) violin section, after which the clarinet introduces the main theme. In the middle, there is a slower section in the time signature 3+2+3+2+3/8, after which the pattern of variations on the theme is resumed.
János Kárpáti has discussed the structural aspects of Contrasts in detail. Szigeti recalled that Bartók had told him that the start of Contrasts had partial inspiration from the "Blues" second movement of Maurice Ravel
's Sonata for Violin and Piano. F. Bónis has further noted the parallel between a short passage in the same Ravel movement and a passage in the first movement of Contrasts.
of the first movement features, in relation to the root, A, the minor and major third and the perfect and diminished fifth:
Eb is revealed as both an alternative fifth of an A chord and the alternative third of a C chord by the canon
at the third at the beginning of the development, bar 58:
Between the six notes of both triads are seven thirds.
Verbunkos was a stately and stylized Hungarian Recruiting Dance "measured in rhythm and rich in melodic embellishments characterized by the theme:
) two strings for the last movement, lowering the E and raising the G a semitone each .
The trio of this movement features "Bulgarian Rhythm" and is similar in spirit ot the Finale of the first Violin Sonata:
Seiber considers it "a less weighty, less important work in Bartók's whole œuvre" though the "writing for both violin and clarinet" are "most effective throughout". An article describing a program in which "the standard note on Bartók's Contrasts...was replaced by a sequential, diagrammatic sketch," concluded that, "in fact, Bartók looks as inscrutable as he sounds".
1938 in music
-Events:*January 16**Benny Goodman plays the first jazz concert at Carnegie Hall.**Béla Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion is premiered in Basel....
composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
scored for clarinet-violin-piano trio
Clarinet-violin-piano trio
A clarinet-violin-piano trio is a standardized chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, one violin, and one piano participating in relatively equal roles, or the name of a piece written for such a group....
by Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
(1881-1945). It is based on Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n dance melodies and has three movements with a combined duration of 17-20 minutes. Bartók wrote the work in response to a letter from violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti was a Hungarian violinist.Born into a musical family, he spent his early childhood in a small town in Transylvania. He quickly proved himself to be a child prodigy on the violin, and moved to Budapest with his father to study with the renowned pedagogue Jenő Hubay...
, although it was officially commissioned by clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
ist Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
. Bartók's only chamber piece to include a wind instrument , the piece is frequently performed by the Verdehr Trio
Verdehr Trio
The Verdehr Trio is a chamber ensemble that has worked to promote the clarinet-violin-piano trio repertoire through international commissions, recordings, and performances. The trio features Walter Verdehr on violin, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr on clarinet, and Silvia Roederer on piano...
and was recorded for their Making of a Medium Series.
History
Szigeti originally wanted Bartók to write a short piece with two movements and a total duration of 6-7 minutes. This was most likely so that a recording of it would be able to fit cleanly on a single gramophone recordGramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
, with one movement on each side with capacity for approximately four minutes running time. The first version of the work, titled Rhapsody, received its premiere on 9 January 1939 at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, with Szigeti, Goodman, and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
Endre Petri performing. Bartók subsequently added a middle movement and changed the work's title to Contrasts. Szigeti, Goodman and Bartók first performed the final, three-movement work at Carnegie Hall on 21 April 1940, and subsequently recorded it for Columbia. Bartók published the work in 1942 and dedicated it to Szigeti and Goodman.
Structure
The work is in three movements:- VerbunkosVerbunkosVerbunkos is an 18th-century Hungarian dance and music genre. Erroneously, this genre was sometimes attributed to Gypsies, because usually they were the musicians, although the Magyars themselves were sometimes performers,as well....
- Recruiting Dance - Pihenő - "Relaxation"
- Sebes - Fast Dance
The movements contrast in tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
. The first movement contains a Cadenza
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
for clarinet and the last one for violin. The piece features examples of alternate or dual-thirds (C and C in an A triad):
Major third
In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the major third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is qualified as major because it is the largest of the two: the major third spans four semitones, the minor third three...
and minor third
Minor third
In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the minor third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. The minor quality specification identifies it as being the smallest of the two: the minor third spans three semitones, the major...
of a triad
Triad (music)
In music and music theory, a triad is a three-note chord that can be stacked in thirds. Its members, when actually stacked in thirds, from lowest pitched tone to highest, are called:* the Root...
are used. This structure may be extended through considering each third of the original triad as also being a possible third in a triad a half step in either direction. Thus C/D is a major third in an A major triad and the minor third of a B major triad:
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
and music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
genre "verbunkos", or recruiting dance. The genre of music was commonly played at military recruitings. The second movement is much more introspective and has a continuously shifting mood without a defined theme. The third is a frenzied dance that begins with a scordatura
Scordatura
A scordatura , also called cross-tuning, is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument, in which the notes indicated in the score would represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch is altered...
(G-D-A-E) violin section, after which the clarinet introduces the main theme. In the middle, there is a slower section in the time signature 3+2+3+2+3/8, after which the pattern of variations on the theme is resumed.
János Kárpáti has discussed the structural aspects of Contrasts in detail. Szigeti recalled that Bartók had told him that the start of Contrasts had partial inspiration from the "Blues" second movement of Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's Sonata for Violin and Piano. F. Bónis has further noted the parallel between a short passage in the same Ravel movement and a passage in the first movement of Contrasts.
Verbunkos
"Verbunkos", features polymodality or what Kárpáti terms alternative structures. For example, the framing motifMotif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
of the first movement features, in relation to the root, A, the minor and major third and the perfect and diminished fifth:
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
at the third at the beginning of the development, bar 58:
Verbunkos was a stately and stylized Hungarian Recruiting Dance "measured in rhythm and rich in melodic embellishments characterized by the theme:
Pihenő
This movement has been described as volcanic rather than relaxing , despite its title, "relaxation" or "rest".Sebes
The violinist must retune (scordaturaScordatura
A scordatura , also called cross-tuning, is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument, in which the notes indicated in the score would represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch is altered...
) two strings for the last movement, lowering the E and raising the G a semitone each .
The trio of this movement features "Bulgarian Rhythm" and is similar in spirit ot the Finale of the first Violin Sonata:
Reception
The work is said by Kárpáti to have "technical bravura and at the same time...poetic versatility". In contrast, E.R. , assumes that appreciation of the work suffers from its "lack of variety of mood" though "Bartók's genius consists in gifts of rhetoric so rich that he can spread this one mood, and spread it interestingly, over a score or more of large-scale works". He argues that the "contrasts" in the piece are "of speed rather than of mood."Seiber considers it "a less weighty, less important work in Bartók's whole œuvre" though the "writing for both violin and clarinet" are "most effective throughout". An article describing a program in which "the standard note on Bartók's Contrasts...was replaced by a sequential, diagrammatic sketch," concluded that, "in fact, Bartók looks as inscrutable as he sounds".
Further reading
- "Program Notes: Better Unwritten than Unread", Music Educators Journal, Vol. 54, No. 7. (Mar., 1968), pp. 96-97. Features a listening score for Contrasts.
- Kárpáti, János. Bartok's Chamber Music. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press (1976).
Sources
- Bradshaw, Susan (2001). "Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music", Cambridge Companion to Bartók, p.116. Amanda Bayley, ed. ISBN 0-521-66958-8. Centenrio Belae Bartók Sacrum#.
- Seiber, Mátyás (1949). "Béla Bartók's Chamber Music", Tempo, New Ser., No. 13, Bartók Number. (Autumn, 1949), pp. 19-31.
- E. R. (1943) ."Review: Contrasts, for Violin, Clarinet and Piano by Béla Bartók", Music & Letters, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Jan., 1943), p. 61.
External links
- ET's Clarinet Studio: Contrasts by Bela Bartok by Eric Tishkoff
- Sierra Chamber Society Program Notes: Contrasts by Joseph Way
- Luna Nova Music Ensemble podcasts: Contrasts or http://www.lunanova.org/pod.html
- Aurelius Ensemble - Bartók: Contrasts
- Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin & Piano (Mvt I + II) performed by Yehudi MenuhinYehudi MenuhinYehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, Thea KingThea KingDame Thea King DBE FRCM FGSM was a British clarinettist.Thea King was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, the daughter of Henry Walter Mayer King, the manager of a family engineering business, George. W. King Ltd., based in Hitchin then Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and his wife, Dorothea...
, and Jeremy Menuhin - Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin & Piano (Mvt III)
- Composer's Datebook, Public Radio International, January 8-14, 2007
- Notes to Naxos recording, 8.550749