نطق دوم

Lecture 2 - Béla Bartók

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a music history class.

Professor: So I just finished reviewing your papers on the influence of nationalism on the composers’ music. And initially I was surprised none of you chose to write about Béla Bartók, that is until I remembered we haven’t had a chance to discuss him in class yet. He was a wonderful and ground-breaking composer.

Béla Bartók was a Hungarian, whose life stretched from the late nineteenth century to the middle of twentieth century. But he was not a fan of the Romantic style of music that was popular in his homeland during his youth.

Student: Wait, Hungary wasn’t a country in 1900, was it?

Professor: You are right. I should have been clear. Bartok was born in AustriaHungary, a nation that broke apart when he was about forty years old. Actually, the town where he was born is presently part of Romania. The political history of that region is complex.Suffice to say that Bartok is generally known as a Hungarian composer.

So during Bartók’s youth, the music played in the concert halls of Austria-Hungary was dominated by Romantic pieces by mostly German composers. We discussed the Romantic style last week. These pieces were long and lyrical. They were meant to have a sort of grandeur about them.

And in the early 1900s, composers who worked in the Romantic style were the most popular in Austria-Hungary. But Bartok, he was part of the musical community that was trying to change this. And it led him to … well, the first thing it did was lead him to travel.He looked at the countryside for the music of the farmers and the people who lived in small towns, and their music, well, you could say he discovered the music that was popular in those areas.

Student: What do you mean?

Professor: Well, all the music we have been talking about the past few weeks, it really was all in the cities, that’s where the composers and the orchestras were. Out in remote areas of the countryside, in rural locations, music was more traditional, the same songs that were enjoyed by previous generations.

Bartók went out, he travelled to a significant portion of Eastern Europe actually.

He roamed the countryside and listened to the music heard in small towns and in all sorts of celebrations. He attended weddings, dances and religious ceremonies, where he heard a very different sort of music from the Romantic stuff being played in the concert halls in the cities. The music he heard is what we would consider folk music.

Student: And then he had those same songs played in the concert halls?

Professor: No. At first he went around to document the folk music. He really wanted to make sure the folk songs were written down before they disappeared. In fact, Bartók didn’t start out the trip thinking of himself as a composer. He was an ethnomusicologist. He studied the traditional music of the region. But it turns out that what would later have a notable influence on European music on the whole, was the way Bartók used elements he heard in folk songs in his own compositions.

He adopted a number of elements from what he heard, like unusual rhythms. And he liked to use the glissando as his hallmark, which he probably got from listening to Croatian folk music. A glissando is … well, I have got a recording of Bartok here. Let’s wait until the music is fresh in our minds. Susie, do you have something you want to ask first?

Student: Yeah. Before, you mention nationalism and…

Professor: Ah, right, yes. When Bartok had his new pieces performed, their folk music roots made them instantly popular. It happened to be a time of strong nationalism in Austria-Hungary, so his compositions came at just the right time.

He became very successful there. Particularly, when Bartok’s ballet The Wooden Prince opened, there was great excitement for music that included musical elements from local folk songs, music that reflected the region’s musical traditions.

However, as popular as Bartok was in his homeland, he did not get much international recognition during his lifetime.