Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts: political, social and cultural
- Part II Profiles of the music
- 3 Bartók's orchestral music and the modern world
- 4 The stage works: portraits of loneliness
- 5 Vocal music: inspiration and ideology
- 6 Piano music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements
- 7 Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music
- 8 The Piano Concertos and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
- 9 Works for solo violin and the Viola Concerto
- 10 The String Quartets and works for chamber orchestra
- Part III Reception
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
9 - Works for solo violin and the Viola Concerto
from Part II - Profiles of the music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts: political, social and cultural
- Part II Profiles of the music
- 3 Bartók's orchestral music and the modern world
- 4 The stage works: portraits of loneliness
- 5 Vocal music: inspiration and ideology
- 6 Piano music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements
- 7 Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music
- 8 The Piano Concertos and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
- 9 Works for solo violin and the Viola Concerto
- 10 The String Quartets and works for chamber orchestra
- Part III Reception
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Bartók wrote more solo works for violin than for any other instrument except his own, the piano. In fact, the violin is just about the only instrument besides the piano for which Bartók wrote solo works at all, aside from the cello version of the First Rhapsody (1928), originally for violin, the clarinet part in Contrasts (1938), playing alongside the violin, and the Viola Concerto (1945, incomplete). The piano works, taken as a group, have been the subject of several extensive studies, but the solo violin works have usually been discussed individually or in small groups. As for the Viola Concerto, its incompleteness and the problems surrounding the different performing versions have understandably compelled scholars to focus on the source situation and touch on stylistic issues only tangentially.
A noteworthy difference between the respective genres of violin and piano works has to do with form. With the exception of the 44 Duos (1931), the violin works adhere exclusively to the two- or three-movement forms of sonata, concerto or rhapsody, while among the compositions for piano, one notes a large number of short character pieces (bagatelles, burlesques, dirges, sketches, or simply ‘pieces’) alongside works like the Suite or the Sonata. By considering all the solo violin/viola works in one integrated survey, one begins to see a distinct stylistic thread spanning Bartók's entire career, one that cuts across lines of genres and style periods as they are normally perceived.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Bartók , pp. 133 - 150Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001