Béla Bartók March, Op. 17 list 1 Videos
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Enesco Béla Bartók Paul Sacher Zoltán Székely Kolisch Hungarian Quartet Budapest Quartet 1939 1941 1945 1998 2013
The String Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114, BB 119, was the final string quartet that Béla Bartók wrote before his death. It was begun in August 1939 in Saanen, Switzerland, where Bartók was a guest of his patron, the conductor Paul Sacher. Shortly after he completed the Divertimento for String Orchestra on the 17th, he started on a commission for his friend, the violinist Zoltán Székely. Székely was acting as intermediary for the "New Hungarian Quartet", who had given the Budapest premiere of the String Quartet No 5. With the outbreak of World War II and his mother's illness, Bartók returned to Budapest, where the quartet was finished in November. After his mother's death, Bartók decided to leave with his family for the United States. Due to the difficulties of the war, communication between Bartók and Székely was difficult, and the quartet was not premiered until 20 January 1941, when the Kolisch Quartet, to whom the work is dedicated, gave its premiere at the Town Hall in New York City. The work is in four movements ; each movement opens with a slow melody marked "mesto" (sadly). This material is employed for only a relatively short introduction in the first movement, but is longer in the second and longer again in the third. In the fourth movement, the mesto material, with reminiscences of the first movement material, consumes the entire movement. It can be seen from Bartók's sketches that he had intended the last movement to have a quick, Romanian folk dance-like character with an aksak rhythmic character,[5] but he abandoned this plan, whether motivated by pure compositional logic or despair at the impending death of his mother and the unfolding catastrophe of the war. In poor health and financially insecure, Bartók composed relatively little in the United States before his death in 1945, but, in the last year or so of his life, he made some sketches hypothesized to be the slow movement of a never completed seventh quartet. Recording made in 1998, with the record label "Pierre Verany" Picture : Amir Hossein Zanjani, "Blue Impression" (2013)
Enesco Béla Bartók Alban Berg László Pro Arte Quartet 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1998
The String Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók was written from July to September 1928 in Budapest. It is one of six string quartets by Bartok. 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 climactic 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 mutes, 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. A study of the manuscript sources, as published by László Somfai finds that Bartók originally intended the quartet to have four movements, not five. Recording made in 1998, with the record label "Pierre Verany" Picture : Vassily Kandinsky, "Jaune-Rouge-Bleu" (1925)
Enesco Béla Bartók Alban Berg László Pro Arte Quartet 1926 1927 1928 1929 1952 1998
The String Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók was written from July to September 1928 in Budapest. It is one of six string quartets by Bartok. 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 climactic 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 mutes, 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. A study of the manuscript sources, as published by László Somfai finds that Bartók originally intended the quartet to have four movements, not five. Recording made in 1998, with the record label "Pierre Verany" Picture : Victor Vasarely, "Zint" (1952)
Enesco Béla Bartók Alban Berg László Pro Arte Quartet 1908 1926 1927 1928 1929 1998
The String Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók was written from July to September 1928 in Budapest. It is one of six string quartets by Bartok. 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 climactic 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 mutes, 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. A study of the manuscript sources, as published by László Somfai finds that Bartók originally intended the quartet to have four movements, not five. Recording made in 1998, with the record label "Pierre Verany" Picture : Arkhip Kuinji, "Night Watch" (1908)
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