Bartok, Bela Books

Bartok and His World

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Editorial Review:

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.

The Music of Bela Bartok (Composers of the Twentieth Century Serie)

Paul Wilson

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Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

David Cooper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

This delightful little guide will help you get so much more from the Concerto for Orchestra 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is an immediately accessible work, and since its premiere in 1944 it has often been inserted into concert programme as a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Nonetheless, coming from the genius composer that was Bartok, the Concerto for Orchestra contains a wealth of ideas more than you would imagine, the gradual discovery of which can only increase your enjoyment in listening to it. For that reason, I was happy to read this guide by David Cooper.

After the short introduction, Cooper's study consists of four major parts. The first, entitled Background, is a sketch of all the orchestral works Bartok wrote before that could be said to foreshadow the Concerto for Orchestra. Indeed, Cooper believes that the Concerto harkens all the way back to Bartok's early student piece "Kossuth". The second part, "Genesis and reception", gives the biographical facts about how Bartok came to write the piece, when he wrote it, and how it was understood by the public and later composers.

You can find such biographical facts anywhere, but what makes Cooper's guide so wonderful is his bar-by-bar explanation of the Concerto. Cooper explains Bartok's harmonic turns, what Balkan folk bases he uses, the hidden and not-so-hidden motifs that reoccur in the piece, and the major divisions within each movement. This chapter assumes no deep knowledge of egghead musical analysis only that you know some general musical notation and can follow along with a score, and I daresay a great many experienced classical music listeners can manage that.

The last major section, "Musical analysis" is perhaps the least important for casual listeners, but nonetheless interesting. Cooper explains the three main schools of analysis, with a critical view to Lendvai's claims of finding the golden section deeply embedded in the form. Finally, there is an appendix consisting of Bartok's own programme notes to the piece, and a newspaper review of the world premiere.

It's a shame Cambridge University Press has priced this little 100-page paperback so highly--it's ironic that you can pick up an actual quality recording of the Concerto for Orchestra, Salonen leading the L.A. Philharmonic on a Sony disc, for much, much less. Nonetheless, if you love Bartok's late masterpiece, this is well worth the investment.

Editorial Review:

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra has proven to be one of the most popularly successful concert works of the twentieth century. It is seen by its champions as an example of Bartók's seamless blend of Eastern European folk music and Western art music, and by its detractors as indicative of the composer's artistic compromise. This book contains a discussion of the historical and musical contexts of the piece, its early performance history and critical reception. It also includes the first complete movement-by-movement synopsis of the Concerto, as well as detailed technical information about the work.

BŽla Bart—k: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Ernest Bloch Lectures in Music)

L‡szl— Somfai

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Editorial Review:

This long-awaited, authoritative account of Bartk's compositional processes stresses the composer's position as one of the masters of Western music history and avoids a purely theoretical approach or one that emphasizes him as an enthusiast for Hungarian folk music. For Bla Bartk, composition often began with improvisation at the piano. Lszl Somfai maintains that Bartk composed without preconceived musical theories and refused to teach composition precisely for this reason. He was not an analytical composer but a musical creator for whom intuition played a central role. These conclusions are the result of Somfai's three decades of work with Bartk's oeuvre; of careful analysis of some 3,600 pages of sketches, drafts, and autograph manuscripts; and of the study of documents reflecting the development of Bartk's compositions. Included as well are corrections preserved only on recordings of Bartk's performances of his own works. Somfai also provides the first comprehensive catalog of every known work of Bartk, published and unpublished, and of all extant draft, sketch, and preparatory material. His book will be basic to all future scholarly work on Bartk and will assist performers in clarifying the problems of Bartk notation. Moreover, it will be a model for future work on other major composers.

Bart±Ok Orchestral Music (BBC music guides)

John McCabe

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My Father

Peter Bartok

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Bela Bartok: An Analysis of His Music

Emu Lendvai, Erno Lendvai

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

This book changed my musical life. 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

This is the most concise musical analysis I have ever read. The examples are clear and without ambiguity. The logical progression of discussing the simple building blocks of Bartok's style leading on to the complex aspects of his writing is perfect. However, the pinnacle achievement of this book is the section that explains the natural progression of harmonic structures from Bach through Bartok that dispells any rumors or theories that 20th century music is merely a mathematical aberration or a gratuitous construct. If you want to discover why modern Jazz owes much of it's theory to Bartok, read this book.

Fundamental testimony ! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 8 people found this review helpful.

The peaceable existences do not use to be genius ` man patrimony . We have come to life for getting our bliss and the most of times you must to fight for reaching it .

Few times a tragic destiny as Bartok was , a man will have treated with such implacable symmetry . In last instance , Bartok argues talking about The bluebeard castle , we enter to world with tears and with tears we come out from it . The teardrops point our existence ...

Grillparzer ` s epitaph on Schubert `s tombstone could not be more appropriate to resume Bartok `s life : "The art of music here entombed a rich possession , but even fairer hopes".

For curious circumstances I have been involved with Bartok `s music and this fact has enriched my life gaze .

This book is a passionate, intense and vivid B.B. ` s portrait . The author penetrates with frantic commitment to the interfolds of the soul of this unique musician .

More than a simple advise , it `s impossible for you to abandon your life without reading this biography .

I had the enormous privilege of talking briefly with György Sandor - the maxim exponent of his piano music - in that unforgettable December 9 1982 night in Caracas after his performance and he told me among other issues the huge human quality , his shaman wisdom , the domain of fourteen idioms and the profound influence through his entire life .

And these words of Bartok will talk by themselves : "An ideal folklorist of popular songs should be poly historian , polyglot and linguist , phonetic specialist to watch and observe the minor hues of the several dialects and jargon . Something like a phonograph , in his exact description about the interferences between the music and the popular dances"

It can sound speculation but I have always thought the profound esteem felt by the Russian people to Dimitri Shostakovich must be parallel to the Hungarian people to Bela Bartok

Stage Works of Bela Bartok: English National Opera Guide 44 (English National Opera Guides)

Bartok

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Editorial Review:

The English National Opera Guides were originally conceived in partnership with the English National Opera and edited by Nicholas John, the ENO's dramaturg, who died tragically in an accident in the Alps. Most of the guides are devoted to a single opera, which is described in detail—with many articles that cover its history and information about the composer and his times. The complete libretto is included in both the original language and in a modern singing translation—except where the opera was written in English. Each has a thematic guide to the most important musical themes in musical notation and each guide is lavishly illustrated. They also contain a bibliography and a discography which is updated at each reprint. The ENO guides are widely regarded as the best series of their kind and excellent value.

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra: Understanding Bartok's World (Monuments of Western Music)

Benjamin Suchoff

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Bartok studies (Detroit reprints in music)

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