String Quartet No. 4 (Bartók)
Encyclopedia
The String Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók
was written from July to September, 1927 in Budapest
.
The work is in five movements:
This work, like the String Quartet No. 5
, and several other pieces by Bartók, exhibits an "arch" structure — the first movement is thematically related to the last, and the second to the fourth with the third movement standing alone. Also, the outer four movements feature rhythmic sforzandos that cyclically tie them together in terms of climatic areas.
The quartet shares a similar harmonic
language to that of the String Quartet No. 3
, and as with that work, it has been suggested that Bartók was influenced in his writing by Alban Berg
's Lyric Suite (1926) which he had heard in 1927.
The quartet employs a number of extended instrumental techniques
. For the whole of the second movement all four instruments play with mute
s, while the entire fourth movement features pizzicato
. In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato
, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called Bartók pizzicati (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument's fingerboard).
The work is dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet
but its first public performance was given by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet in Budapest on March 20, 1929. It was first published in the same year by Universal Edition
.
, instead dividing the semitone scale
into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”. He also incorporates whole-tone
, pentatonic
, and octatonic
scales — as well as diatonic and heptatonia seconda scales — as subsets of the chromatic scale.
His use of these subset scales allowed him to incorporate a wide range of folk music in an expanded harmonic system. Indeed, his original studies and settings of many examples gleaned from his extensive explorations of the Hungarian countryside and Eastern and Central Europe, undoubtedly served as a major influence upon his expanded musical vocabulary.
According to George Perle the, "primary basic cells
of this work, at their principal pitch level, are":
Since, "any tetrachord
may be bisected into its component dyads
in three different ways...cell x0 may be partitioned into two semitones (1-0=3-2), two whole steps (3-1=2-0), and two symmetrically related dyads...(3+0=2+1=3)". Cell z is also the basic cell of Alban Berg
's opera Lulu
, generating its Trope I
. Cell z8/2, however, may be divided into two semitones, 8-7=2-1, two perfect fourths, 7-2=1-8, and two symmetrical dyads, 8+7=2+1=3 and 7+2=1+8=9. The former axis of symmetry (3) being the same as that of cell x0, the latter (9) being shared by x3 and x9, and both (3 and 9) being shared by z11/5. x may be seen as a segment of the chromatic scale
, y a segment of the whole-tone scale, and z a segment of the octatonic scale (on 1: 12 45 78 te).
Bartók held a long fascination with mathematics and how it pertained to music. He experimented with incorporating the golden section and the Fibonacci sequence into his writing. Though these fascinations aren’t obviously present in his Fourth String Quartet, he did incorporate symmetrical structures: Movements I and V are similar, as are Movements II and IV; Movement III is at center, greatly contrasting with the other movements.
Movements I and V share similar motifs (some of it is based on cell z); the second theme in the first movement is prominent in the fifth. Movements II and IV share similar ideas as well, but the ideas present within these two movements can be considered variations on themes presented earlier, expanding and building on ideas presented in the first and fifth movements. Movement III differs from the other four movements in that it is textured and quiet.
The symmetry of the movements isn’t limited only to the themes; the lengths of the movements show symmetry as well. The first, third and fifth movements are approximately six minutes long, whereas the second and fourth are shorter, at about three minutes each.
. It completely departs from the first two movements in that it is more consonant, widely using diatonic
and many folk-like elements. Usage of the pentatonic scale is more apparent.
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...
was written from July to September, 1927 in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
.
The work is in five movements:
- Allegro
- Prestissimo, con sordino
- Non troppo lento
- Allegretto pizzicato
- Allegro molto
This work, like the String Quartet No. 5
String Quartet No. 5 (Bartók)
The String Quartet No. 5 Sz. 102, BB 110 by Béla Bartók was written between August 6 and September 6, 1934.The work is in five movements:#Allegro#Adagio molto#Scherzo: alla bulgarese#Andante#Finale: Allegro vivace...
, and several other pieces by Bartók, exhibits an "arch" structure — the first movement is thematically related to the last, and the second to the fourth with the third movement standing alone. Also, the outer four movements feature rhythmic sforzandos that cyclically tie them together in terms of climatic areas.
The quartet shares a similar harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
language to that of the String Quartet No. 3
String Quartet No. 3 (Bartók)
The String Quartet No. 3 by Béla Bartók was written in September 1926 in Budapest.The work is in one continuous stretch with no breaks, but is divided in the score into four parts:#Prima parte: Moderato#Seconda parte: Allegro...
, and as with that work, it has been suggested that Bartók was influenced in his writing by Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Lyric Suite (1926) which he had heard in 1927.
The quartet employs a number of extended instrumental techniques
Extended technique
Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....
. For the whole of the second movement all four instruments play with mute
Mute (music)
A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both.- Musical directions for muting :...
s, while the entire fourth movement features pizzicato
Pizzicato
Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....
. In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called Bartók pizzicati (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument's fingerboard).
The work is dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet
Pro Arte Quartet
The Pro Arte String Quartet was founded in Belgium in 1912, and transferred permanently to Madison, Wisconsin in 1941. After becoming the Court Quartet to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, the Pro Arte began the first of many international tours in 1919. Bartok, Milhaud and Honegger entrusted the...
but its first public performance was given by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet in Budapest on March 20, 1929. It was first published in the same year by Universal Edition
Universal Edition
Universal Edition is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, and originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market...
.
Analysis
Bartók’s musical vocabulary, as demonstrated in his string quartets particularly, departs from traditional use of major and minor keys, focusing more on the chromatic scale and attempting to utilize each note equally. Regardless, Bartók doesn’t follow any form of serialismSerialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, instead dividing the semitone scale
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”. He also incorporates whole-tone
Whole tone scale
In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:...
, pentatonic
Pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...
, and octatonic
Octatonic scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale...
scales — as well as diatonic and heptatonia seconda scales — as subsets of the chromatic scale.
His use of these subset scales allowed him to incorporate a wide range of folk music in an expanded harmonic system. Indeed, his original studies and settings of many examples gleaned from his extensive explorations of the Hungarian countryside and Eastern and Central Europe, undoubtedly served as a major influence upon his expanded musical vocabulary.
According to George Perle the, "primary basic cells
Cell (music)
The 1957 Encyclopédie Larousse defines a cell in music as a "small rhythmic and melodic design that can be isolated, or can make up one part of a thematic context." The cell may be distinguished from the figure or motif:...
of this work, at their principal pitch level, are":
- x0 : 0 1 2 3
- y10: 10 0 2 4
- z8/2: 8 1 2 7
Since, "any tetrachord
Tetrachord
Traditionally, a tetrachord is a series of three intervals filling in the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion. In modern usage a tetrachord is any four-note segment of a scale or tone row. The term tetrachord derives from ancient Greek music theory...
may be bisected into its component dyads
Dyad (music)
In music, a dyad is a set of two notes or pitches. Although most chords have three or more notes, in certain contexts a dyad may be considered to be a chord. The most common two-note chord is made from the interval of a perfect fifth, which may be suggestive of music of the Medieval or Renaissance...
in three different ways...cell x0 may be partitioned into two semitones (1-0=3-2), two whole steps (3-1=2-0), and two symmetrically related dyads...(3+0=2+1=3)". Cell z is also the basic cell of Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's opera Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
, generating its Trope I
Trope (music)
A trope or tropus may be a variety of different things in medieval and modern music.The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος , "a turn, a change" , related to the root of the verb τρέπειν , "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"...
. Cell z8/2, however, may be divided into two semitones, 8-7=2-1, two perfect fourths, 7-2=1-8, and two symmetrical dyads, 8+7=2+1=3 and 7+2=1+8=9. The former axis of symmetry (3) being the same as that of cell x0, the latter (9) being shared by x3 and x9, and both (3 and 9) being shared by z11/5. x may be seen as a segment of the chromatic scale
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
, y a segment of the whole-tone scale, and z a segment of the octatonic scale (on 1: 12 45 78 te).
Bartók held a long fascination with mathematics and how it pertained to music. He experimented with incorporating the golden section and the Fibonacci sequence into his writing. Though these fascinations aren’t obviously present in his Fourth String Quartet, he did incorporate symmetrical structures: Movements I and V are similar, as are Movements II and IV; Movement III is at center, greatly contrasting with the other movements.
Movements I and V share similar motifs (some of it is based on cell z); the second theme in the first movement is prominent in the fifth. Movements II and IV share similar ideas as well, but the ideas present within these two movements can be considered variations on themes presented earlier, expanding and building on ideas presented in the first and fifth movements. Movement III differs from the other four movements in that it is textured and quiet.
The symmetry of the movements isn’t limited only to the themes; the lengths of the movements show symmetry as well. The first, third and fifth movements are approximately six minutes long, whereas the second and fourth are shorter, at about three minutes each.
Movement I: Allegro
Movement I utilizes whole-tone elements. Though not traditionally tonal, it is centered around ‘C’. The movement gradually progresses from cluster-like elements to full chords. This, in part, helps with building tension through the movement’s six minutes. Listen for cell x in this movement's chromatic lines.Movement II: Prestissimo, con sordino
The second movement moves quicker than the first, giving off a hurried feeling. The chromatic scale is widely utilized, starting off in the lower registers and being answered in higher registers. Fast scales, trills, vibrato are all used to add color and texture. The pentatonic scale is present and apparent throughout. Additionally, the strings are used to produce horn-like and percussive effects.Movement III: Non troppo lento
The third movement includes a great example of Bartók's night music styleNight music (Bartók)
Night Music is a musical style of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or orchestra compositions in his mature period...
. It completely departs from the first two movements in that it is more consonant, widely using diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony...
and many folk-like elements. Usage of the pentatonic scale is more apparent.
Movement IV: Allegretto pizzicato
The fourth movement is similar to the second and is faster than the previous, instilling the same hurry as in the first two movements. The musicians play pizzicato throughout. Bartók also utilizes “his” pizzicato throughout the movement: the “Bartók” pizzicato requires plucking the stringed instrument aggressively enough to result in the string rebounding off the fingerboard and creating a slapping sound. Staying symmetrical, the music references and builds on ideas in Movement II.Movement V: Allegro molto
The final movement mirrors the first, the second theme from the first movement seeing extensive use. The randomly accentuated quarter notes sound percussive and horn-like. Inversions and retrogrades of the theme are heard throughout the movement, utilized in different octaves. Overall, the fifth movement is more liberal in using variations of themes present in the first movement.External links
Further reading
- Leo TreitlerLeo TreitlerLeo Treitler is an American musicologist born in Dortmund, Germany, and is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York....
, "Harmonic procedure in the Fourth Quartet of Bartók" in the Journal of Music Theory (November 1959)