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Bartok Allegro Barbaro
Bartok Allegro Barbaro
Bartok Allegro Barbaro
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Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
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Perfect and Mistuned Structures in Bartok's Music
Janos KARPATI
Budapest
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366 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
'; ... since we do not have to deal here with two, totally opposite principles, it seems to
me that a deliberate (not too frequent) use of chords of older tonal phrasing within
atonal music would not be in bad taste. An isolated triad of the diatonic scale, a third, a
perfect fifth or octave amidst atonal chords ... do not give an impression of tonality ...
4 Erno Lendvai, Belcl Bclrtok. An Al1cl1ysis I)f His Musie (London: Kahn & Averill, 1971).
5 Bclrtl)k's Chclmber Mlesic. Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1994; The Bclrti)k Cl)mpclnil)n, ed. Malcolm
Gillies (London: Faber & Faber, 1993).
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J. Karpati: Pettect and Mistuned Structures 367
augmented 1 3
octave 12 C
diminished 11
augmented 8
fifth 7
diminished 6
fourt 5
major third 4
minor third 3
(5 "Das Problem der neuen Musik", Mell)s 1920, 1. English translation in: Bclrtok E.v.sclys, ed. Benjamin
Suchoff (London: Faber & Faber, 1976), 457458.
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') _;
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368 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
version that appears first (Ex. lb), and it turns out only la
famous "barrel organ episode" (Ex. lc) that the theme has a p
at the same time banal version, which is soon rejected by the
as ridiculous and unusable.
a
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c
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J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures 369
A second more frequent type is the one when only the mistuned
melody occurs, and the perfect form might only be guessed behind it, so
it is only imaginary. A characteristic example is given by the first subject
of the first movement of String Quartet no. 5. Bartok could have formu-
lated it in a strict pentatonic system (la = B; pentatony). But this perfect
fifth-octave structure would obviously have been flat and uninteresting
for him, so he actually shaped the melody so that the upper layer slides
down a semitone:
a . .
m 7-@J!J I J 4;s 1:
Ex. 2: String Quartet no. 5, I, first subject (b),
mistuned from an imaginary pentatonic form (a)
The last movement of the fifth quartet also furnishes good examples
of the way Bartok transformes mistunes the tetrachord structures of
the diatonic modes. Here, without laying a finger on the inner structure
of the tetrachords, replaces the whole tone which separates them with a
semitone-that is, he tunes either the upper tetrachord lower or the lower
tetrachord higher (Ex. 3). In the same movement of the quartet major
and Phrigian tetrachords appear also within a diminished octave
framework.
In mistuning of chordal structures there are two basic types. In one
of them, the perfect and the mistuned structures are not only juxtaposed
but closely built into each other. In this case the notes of the perfect form
are surrounded by chromatic or mistuned variants which could also
be considered as adjacent notes of colouring function, as e.g. in the String
Quartet no. I (Ex. 4).
The other basic type could be characterised by substitution, meaning
that the notes of the perfect chord are substituted by chromatic or mis-
tuned variants. An early but very clear example of this procedure is
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|r-$ 5-t'-oS-
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370
J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structu
Prestissim
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*o
J. Ka'rpa'ti: Perfect and Mistuned Structures 371
Allegretto. (J ={20)
_ _
IY6;is vt
Piano- | P; Ff Wf CF semp p
b;; bwb; W;; b; w b;
. * . . * * . . .
_ | I , ,- t _ L 1
^ -
i 3t 1[ i 31 i; ttJ 0 I ; 31
Ex. 7: A llegro barbaro
7 Ujfalussy Jozsef: "Az Allegro barbaro harmoniai alapgondolata es Bartok hangsorai", Mugyur
Zenetdirteneti Tunulmcznyok Sz(lbolssi Bence 70. szuletesn(lpj(ir(l, ed. Bonis Ferenc (Budapest: Zenemukiado,
1969), 330.
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372 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
a b c
PP |
d l 1
Ex. 8: Chordal mistuning (a<) and its example in Suite op. 14, IV (d)
x Edwin v. d. Null, Bel(l Buwtok. Ein Beitw(lg zuw- Mow?hologie der neuen Musik (Halle [Saale], 1930).
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J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures 373
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4. b
374 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned
P moZZo esprcss.
p moleo espress = =
b
^ ;'Su. . , . r, ,
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1.2.Violel
l 8 X«a X
J. Karpati: Perffiect and Mistuned Structures 375
9 Allegro,;-oz f X
ie % t - $ S Wiv Ev L-S $ Wn
Ex. lOa: Mikrokosmos, no. 145. b: Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion, I, m. S
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376 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
;'In both melodies we feel that the 7/S metre originated in a 3 x 2 metre in eight-notes:
in the iirst example the fourth eighth-note has expanded into a quarter-note; in the
second example, the sixth one." With the same arguments interprets Bartok the
characteristic 2+2+3/16 metre of the Bulgarian Ruchenitza: "The superficial listener
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| Tf:rr r frf ;r t u r
0ex
J. Karpati: Perffiect and Mistuned Structures 377
will evaluate this rhythm either as 3/S or as 2/4. If we derive it from 3/8, th
establish an augmentation by a sixteenth-note; if from 2/4, then a diminution by the
same note value. I favour the former explanation, and as the Bulgarians' own rhythmic
suggests, they too seem to be of this opinion."9
a J.JJ. 60
_/_
1 2^ a^Zw xy C flt t C Xt t C f t
5
The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion furnishes a large variety
of such rhythmic combinations without any reference to the Bulgarian
folk music. The slow introduction is based unequivocally on 9/8, but at
the end of the section the listener can follow the inner transformation of
the 9/8, and when the Allegro molto starts, with maintaining the
numerator (9), the inner structure becomes 1+2+2+2+2/8, which is con-
sidering the actual pattern of the subject as a matter of fact, 1/8+4/4.
') "The So-called Bulgarian Rhythm" (1938), English translation in: Burtok Essays 41, 47.
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378 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
1 4
r r
First subject
YJ J J n S
Y t t t t t t t t t t t t Y Y =
L J _J L f '
\ 4 4 1
Second subject
f r r trv f I = _ X l .!
4+3+2 2+3+4
8 8
y y s - I , _
Thrid subject
pr r pIr r > r 0
Ex. 13: Perfect and mistuned metric structures
in the Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion, I
Let us speak in the end about the tonal structures. It is very im-
portant to emphasize that in Bart6k's thinking tonality served mainly as
a factor in form building, and not exclusively in order to ensure the unity
of a work, but also to create an inner structure, and articulation. In this
context the dominant tonality maintained its traditional role developped
in the order of modulation of the classical era. It means that the dominant
constituted the secondary but still important tonal level which represented
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J. Karpati: Perfiect and Mistuned Structures 379
the progress, the diversity, the moving ahead in relation to the starting
position and tonality. At the same time it should be added: for Bartok it
was not exclusively the fifth higher level to represent the dominant. In
1971, Laszlo Somfai published a manuscript draft so far unknown about
the analysis of String Quartet no. 5 written in French by Bartok at the
request of the impresario of the Pro Arte String Quartet. In this analysis
the composer unequivocally declares the possibility of a "mistuned
dominant" saying: Le theme principal a deux degrees principales: SiN
(tonique) et Mi (youant le role de la dominante).l°
Having this testimony it becomes unwarrantable that the tonal levels
in polar distance (e.g. B; and E or F# and C) represent identic functions,
as it stands in Lendvai's axis theory. At the same time, it becomes a
plausible determinant of the tonal structure of numerous Bartok composi-
tions (e.g. that of Duke Bluebeards Castle). In this interpretation the
mistuned dominant as polar level rather represents a "powered", quasi
"hyper dominant," condensing the towering of six successive fifth, as it
is shown in the polyphonic process of the Music for Strings, Percussion,
and Celesta. In this context it should be added that the enharmonic polar
level represents a "hyper subdominant", and since the two coincide, the
triple function system of the previous era will be substituted by a double
one. This is a hidden conclusion in Jozsef Ujfalussy's study quoted above,
where he touches without in depth going treatment the critics of
"mechanical adaptation of the classical triple function''.ll And he1-e we
have to refer back to the duality mentioned regarding Allegro barbaro,
namely that the semitone bitonality is concomitant with the ambiguity of
the dominant.
In conclusion I would like to refer to one page of music from the
Suite op. 14 (see Ex. 7) which demonstrates as a paradigm the balance
and-I emphasize the interchangeability of perfect and mistuned struc-
tures in Bartok's compositional techniqlle. The melody, which sounds like
a Rumanian folk dance, is very particuElar by its scale and strophic struc-
ture. It is a kind of mistuning in melodic sense that above the augmented
1(} Somfai Laszlo: "Bartok 5. vonosnegyese. A zeneszerzo kiadatlan formai analizise", MWaik(l XIV:
12 (1971), 2S28. Original French text in: Bclrtok Belcl irCi.VCli 1: BClRtOk BelCl (illplClgCirO'/, mllVeir7, ClZ il;
mclgy(lr zenerb?, mbizene e.s neivene vi.vzonycirol, ed. Tallian Tibor (Budapest: ZenemGkiado, 1989), 217-219
1I See note 7.
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380 J. Karpati: Perfect and Mistuned Structures
l l l l
D A D G#
BS E F# C BS F E B
I J I J l l l I
Chord mistuned perfect
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