Béla Bartók
Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Piano (1928)
lassú
friss
Biography:
Program Notes:
First Rhapsody was composed in 1928, and may well have been dedicated by Bartók to a fellow Hungarian and kindred spirit: the violinist Joseph Szigeti (1892 – 1973); at any rate the two musicians are known to have performed the work together on several occasions, and at least one such performance is preserved—a 1940 Library of Congress recording (Vanguard Classics OVC 8008). First Rhapsody comprises two movements labeled „lassú” and „friss,” “slow” and “fast” respectively.
The “Moderato” tempo indication of the opening movement must be contextualized, for this highly stylized version of a gypsy tune captures the essence of the genre from its outset. The two measures of piano introduction imitate the droning of peasant instruments laying down the beat, here in a persistent and marked left-right, left-right oppositional pattern which continues as the violin enters. That entry, and much of the melodic material of „lassú,” is based on what has come to be known as “the acoustic scale,” wherein characteristic aspects of two modes are conjoined: the raised fourth of the lydian (a half-step from scale degree 5), and the lowered seventh of the mixolydian (a whole step below scale degree 1). At issue here is a means of formalizing—in a notational sense—what is very much a performance practice, namely the distinctive note bending endemic to certain Hungarian folk idioms.
The movement unfolds in a decidedly transparent A – B – A’ formal design with internal repetitions in each of the main sections. The two A sections consist primarily of 8-measure phrases, with the last phrase of each stretched out so as to underscore its closing function. This regularity of phrase length is abandoned in the B section, where asymmetrical unit lengths are the norm and accentuate the comparatively freer nature of the melodic material. A consistent mood, an interrelated tonal plot and the recurrence of various rhythmic patterns hold the movement together. The altered return of the A section is shorter than its correlate, as it omits one of the earlier phrases. The return of A is also at a lower pitch level—something Bartók “corrects” in its last dozen measures.
Only the briefest of breaks is to occur between the first and second movements (Bartók’s indication is “poi attacca”), and yet „lassú” and „friss” are quite noticeably different from one another in virtually every musical parameter. Bartók retains an inner pitch (the pitch “B”) from the final chord of the opening movement and treats it essentially as a point around which everything will pivot for the turn to „friss.” The piano introduction to the later movement effects a change in mood, and when the violin enters (a scant four measures after the piano) „lassú” has already become a distant memory.
The form of the second movement is much looser than that of the first, resembling something of an A – B – C – A’ design (with C carrying an improvisatory flavor). The principal folk tune of the opening is cast in an imaginative setting which increases in terms of its complexity as the A section proceeds. This is classic Bartók, wherein neither source material nor compositional integrity in its reworking are compromised. In other words, Bartók is equally committed to the preservation of a rich heritage and to his own creative engagement with that heritage; the old lives on in the new, and is not usurped by it. A related tune enters in the B section, and the build in its intensity matches that of the A section. The alternate pulling at and pushing of the tempo aligns with changes of register: the violin moves from one pitch zone to the next while rhythmic activity increases in the drive to the climax of the section. The highly improvisatory feel to the ensuing section (section C) is the result of its episodic nature. In a metaphorical sense, it is as though numerous participants in a free round of music-making each take their turn at outdoing one another in an orgiastic display of musical acumen. Everything builds toward a highly agitated state, where the return of the opening section—in what is a highly transformed adaptation of the initial A material—seems the only possible means out of the fray. This version of A, however, combines aspects of all that has gone on since the opening of „friss,” and hence serves as a fitting conclusion to the rhapsodic work.
Program Notes by Gregory Marion
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
The University of Saskatchewan
