Andreas Bach, a studnet of Kämmerling, international prize-winner – a.o. Bruno-
Leonhard-Gelber-Prize in 1987 – presents a recording of a representative collection
from Bartók’s piano works, from the Op. 1 to the suite Im Freien
– one of the most outstanding works of the 20th century’s piano music.
Béla Bartók: Piano Works
The more time has elapsed since Bartók’s
death, the more it becomes obvious that
Bartók may be or may have been the figure
with the profoundest effect on the development
of New Music in the last decades. Especially
his austere harmonics are revolutionary
for his time, and to this day continues to have
an effect in the compositions by Messiaen,
Ligeti or Grisey. A defining characteristic for
the new and special features of Bartók’s harmonics
is very likely the orientation away from
the use of the third to the use of fifths and
octaves as dominating elements. This caused
the typical impression of clarity and power
that is highly special to Bartók’s music. Clarity,
power, and the impression of the archaic, are
attributes that have repeatedly been ascribed
to the intervals octave and fifth (or fourth in
the inversion) in the course of music history.
Bartók rarely used the warming third (or sixth
in the inversion), reminding of the feeling of
security. In the same way that the fifth and
octave gain importance, the tense intervals
of tritone as well as major and minor second
(seventh in the inversion) are more frequent
compared to the third.
It is interesting to hear how Bartók himself
played his pieces, with a rather full, singing
sound he employed in an objective way, as
it were. At the time, his style of playing was
quite unemotional. Compared with recordings
from our time, it seems rather free in
the arrangement. His rubati appear natural
and provoked or oriented on the alternation
of harmonic fields of tension. It is not mainly
the rhythmic, but even more the harmonic element
which seems to have been important for
his relationship with his own music.
One impression of Bartók’s late romantic
period when he made his first compositional
experiments, is found in his
opus 1, a work
with excessive arpeggios over elegiac melodies
in the first, and with the boisterous character
of a folk dance in the second part. Here,
he is still deeply rooted in the old harmonics
and the common chord as the central elements,
inspirations from Liszt’s rhapsodies
and Strauss’ sweeping works for orchestra
are noticeable. The major-minor harmony
also dominates the sonatina composed much
later. However, in this context, this is the
very personal harmony Bartók developed,
partly from contact with the rural population,
to sensitively accompany the original
folk melodies he collected on his academic
excursions through Hungary and Romania.
Here, the brilliant arranger Bartók speaks out
far more through this work, as through many
other arrangements of Hungarian melodies,
than the original composer.
Even before the
Sonatina was written,
he created the famous Allegro barbaro, one
of his original composition that nevertheless
builds on the functions of major-minor
tonality. The
Suite op. 14 was composed one
year after the sonatina. It is a work with a
third movement whose lashing drive almost
makes us think of modern heavy metal music.
Even more advanced in Bartók’s harmonic
development, and possibly the most exciting
work on this CD in this respect are the
Etudes
op. 18 where Bartók leaves the last perceptible
ground of major and minor tonality. Finally,
the suite
“Im Freien” (Out Of Doors) is one of
the most outstanding and fascinating works in
the programme music of the 20th century. The
movement
“Klänge der Nacht” (Night Music)
creates nature living its own dynamics far
away form anything human, not impressionable,
yet following a necessity which provides
its dawning, fatefully passing pulse.
Andreas Bach
translation. ar.pege translations