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Bartók's ‘Four Pieces’ for Two Pianos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Extract

The Second Suite, op. 4, for small orchestra will no doubt play an important role in any critical study of Bartók's musical style. Though his earlier music, too, reveals his striving to create a specifically Hungarian art-music, until the Second Suite his Hungarian inflections were, by his own testimony, of the popular nineteenth-century variety best exemplified by Liszt's Rhapsodies. In contrast, the Second Suite contains elements of genuine Hungarian peasant music. At the same time, it is his last and perhaps best composition still within the framework of the Brahms-Strauss-Liszt idiom.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 53-54 , Spring-Summer 1960 , pp. 17 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

page 17 note 1 Bartók, Béla, Selbstbiographie, in Musikblätter des Anbruch, 3. Jahrg. Nummer 5 (03, 1921), pp. 8790Google Scholar; (transl: The Life of Bela Bartók, in Tempo, Autumn, 1949, No. 13, pp. 37).Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 Demény, János, Bartók Béla Lerelei, [Letters of Béla Bartók] (Vol. 2) Budapest, 1941, p. 65.Google Scholar

page 17 note 3 For some evidence see Bartók's cited autobiography; his letter to Octavian Beu, in Demény, János, Bartók Béla Levelei (Vol. 3), Budapest, 1955, pp. 189190Google Scholar; Kodály, Zoltán: A folklorista Bartók (1950) (Bartók the Folklorist)Google Scholar, reprinted in Zenetudományi Tanulmányok [Musicological Studies] Vol. 3, Kiadó, Akadémiai, Budapest, 1955; etc.Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 The imprint of this lithographed edition gives no date or publisher, but states simply Eigentum des Komponisten and gives the name of the printing shop Eberle Józs [ef] és Társa, Budapest. The copy known to the present writer is in the Béla Bartók Archives, New York City.

page 19 note 1 Debussy's music, even if it could be considered in this context, was unknown to Bartók before the autumn of 1907. (Cf. Eösze, László, Zoltán Kodály élete és munkássága [The Life and Work of Zoltán Kodály], Budapest, 1956, p. 30Google Scholar; also, Bartók's cited autobiography.)