Principles of Pitch Organization in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Rita Honti Principles of Pitch Organization in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Studia musicologica universitatis Helsingiensis XIII Studia musicologica universitatis Helsingiensis General Editor Eero Tarasti Faculty of Arts Department of Musicology PO Box 35 00014 University of Helsinki Finland http://www.helsinki.fi/taitu/musiikkitiede/esittely.htm Copyright © Rita Honti 2006. World rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmit- ted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic or other record, without prior agreement and written permission of the publisher. Printed by Gummerus ISSN 0787-4294 ISBN 952-10-3331-2 ISBN 952-10-3347-9 (PDF) CONTENTS ABSTRACT vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix 1.INTRODUCTION 1 2.INSEARCHOFASYSTEM 13 2.1. Analytical problems, theoretical issues 13 2.1.1. Pitch organization 17 2.1.2. Synthesis of folk- and art-music sources 19 2.1.3. Bartók’s tonal system 30 2.1.4. New chromaticism 43 2.2. Lendvai’s theories 53 2.2.1. The tonal axis system 57 2.2.2. The α-chord structures 60 2.2.3. Alternating-distance scales 64 2.3. A cycle-based system for relating pitch-class sets 67 2.4. Pitch-web analysis 78 2.5. Outline of an integrated analytic technique 89 3.BÉLABARTÓKASFOLK-MUSICRESEARCHER 97 3.1. Some cultural aspects of turn-of-the-century Hungary 97 3.2. Hungarian musical tradition: Whose heritage? 106 3.2.1. Verbunkos and Magyar nóta 107 3.2.2. Hungarian national opera 111 3.3. Bartók and nationalism 120 3.4. Fieldwork 137 3.5. Classification 149 3.5.1. Old-style folk song 153 3.5.2. New- and mixed-style folk song 159 3.6. Three-level concept of folk music arrangement 163 4.BARTÓK’SDUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE 171 4.1. Balázs’s symbolist drama 171 4.2. The creation of modern Hungarian opera 180 4.3. Pitch-web analysis of tonal construction 188 4.4. Individual scenes 197 4.4.1. ‘Prologue’ 203 4.4.2. ‘Night’ 206 4.4.3. ‘Exposition’ 210 4.4.4. First door: ‘Torture Chamber’ 220 4.4.5. Second door: ‘Armory’ 226 4.4.6. Third door: ‘Treasury’ 232 4.4.7. Fourth door: ‘Secret Garden’ 239 4.4.8. Fifth door: ‘Bluebeard’s Kingdom’ 247 4.4.9. Sixth door: ‘The Lake of Tears’ 259 4.4.9.1. Section A 261 4.4.9.2. Section B 264 4.4.9.3. Section C 264 4.4.9.4. Pitch-web analysis of the scene 268 4.4.10. Seventh door: ‘Former Wives’ 286 4.4.11. Closing ‘Night’ scene 292 5.CONCLUSIONS 297 GLOSSARYOFABBREVIATIONS,BASICTERMS, DEFINITIONS,ANDCONCEPTS 305 BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 Index of abbreviations 311 References 312 APPENDIX 347 INDEX 353 ABSTRACT RitaHonti PrinciplesofPitchOrganizationinBartók’sDuke Bluebeard’s Castle University of Helsinki, Faculty of Arts, Department of Musicology The topic of my doctoral thesis is to demonstrate the usefulness of incorporating tonal and modal elements into a pitch-web square analysis of Béla Bartók’s (1881–1945) opera, A kékszakállú herceg vára (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle). My specific goal is to demonstrate that different musical materials, which exist as foreground melodies or long-term key progressions, are unified by the unordered pitch set {0,1,4}, which be- comes prominent in different sections of Bartók’s opera. In Bluebeard’s Castle, the set {0,1,4} is also found as a subset of several tetrachords: {0,1,4,7}, {0,1,4,8}, and {0,3,4,7}. My claim is that {0,1,4} serves to link music materials between themes, between sections, and also between scenes. This study develops an analytical method, drawn from various theoretical per- spectives, for conceiving superposed diatonic spaces within a hybrid pitch-space comprised of diatonic and chromatic features. The integrity of diatonic melodic lines is retained, which allows for a non-reductive understanding of diatonic superpo- sition, without appealing to pitch centers or specifying complete diatonic collec- tions. Through combining various theoretical insights of the Hungarian scholar Ernő Lendvai, and the American theorists Elliott Antokoletz, Paul Wilson and Allen Forte, as well as the composer himself, this study gives a detailed analysis of the opera’s pitch material in a way that combines, complements, and expands upon the studies of those scholars. The analyzed pitch sets are represented on Aarre Joutsenvirta’s note-web square, which adds a new aspect to the field of Bartók analysis. Keywords: Bartók, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (Op. 11), Ernő Lendvai, axis sys- tem, Elliott Antokoletz, intervallic cycles, intervallic cells, Allen Forte, set theory, interval classes, interval vectors, Aarre Joutsenvirta, pitch-web square, pitch-web analysis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research presented in this thesis was carried out at the Department of Musicol- ogy, University of Helsinki, under the supervision of Professor Eero Tarasti and Docent Alfonso Padilla. Their kind support and guidance have been of great value in this study. Having also received my licentiate in musicology there, I opted for a further year of study at the University of Helsinki, and wrote the present thesis in 2005-2006. I wish to express my deep and sincere gratitude to Eero for his continuous sup- port in my Ph. D. program. His wide knowledge and open-mindedness have been of great value to me. His understanding, encouragement, and personal guidance have provided an excellent basis for the present thesis. Eero showed me different ways to approach a research problem and the need to be persistent in order to ac- complish any goal: how to get into analysis and how to get out. His critical insights have been crucial in all stages of my research. I am deeply grateful to Alfonso, as always, for his detailed and constructive comments, and for his firm support, which has continued ever since I attended his doctoral seminars. My warmest thanks to Alfonso for his unwavering help and positive attitude toward my work. Our extensive discussions and interesting ana- lytic explorations have been very helpful to me in completing this thesis. I wish to express my gratitude to the official reviewers of this thesis; in particu- lar, Professor Vilmos Voigt of Eötvös Lóránd University (Budapest) and Dr. Tom Pankhurst of Liverpool Hope University College. Their detailed review and valu- able comments are greatly appreciated. No study such as this could come to fruition without the support and encourage- ment of many others. During this work, I have collaborated with many colleagues for whom I have great regard. I wish to extend my warmest thanks to all those who have helped me with my work in the Department of Musicology at the University Helsinki, International Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Seminars on Musical Semiot- ics, and International Semiotics Institute’s annual summer congresses on semiot- ics. Several people have commented on my manuscript or sections of it, which x — Principles of Pitch Organization in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle include articles and papers related to the present research. In addition to my super- visors, I owe my most sincere gratitude to Professor Márta Csepregi (Budapest), Professor John Deely (Houston), Professor Márta Grabócz (Srasbourg), Professor Robert Hatten (Bloomington), Professor Erkki Pekkilä (Helsinki), Professor Anne Sivuoja-Gunaratnam (Helsinki), Professor Ivanka Stoianova (Paris), and Professor Leo Treitler (New York). Their encouragement and significant scholarly comments and suggestions have been greatly appreciated and have deeply affected the sub- stance of this book. I would like to thank the scholarly community, my friends, and colleagues at the Department of Musicology for their interest and support during the course of my work. Special thanks go to Ph. L. Esa Lilja for many inspiring discussions, which have had a remarkable influence on my entire thesis, and for preparing the notated examples in Chapter 4.4.9. I also thank Dr. György Honti Jr. (Budapest) and Márta Schmidt for several books and for the detailed comments on Chapter 3, and Dr. Susanna Välimäki for her comments on my thesis at different stages. I am grateful also to Liisamaija Hautsalo, Reijo Jyrkiäinen, Anu Konttinen, and Eila Tarasti for the precise and illuminating comments on my analysis. Various people have helped me in many other ways. Thanks to Irma Vierimaa, Merja Hottinen, Erja Hannula, Kirsti Nymark, Sipo Vanhanen, Henrik Ruso and Kristiina Norlamo for helping me at any time, and for solving the many unsolvable problems facing Ph. D. students. Professor Richard Littlefield (Michigan), to whom I express my thanks for his contribution, revised the English of the present manuscript. In addition, my thanks are due to Paul Forsell, who dedicated his precious time to help me in editing the final draft of the dissertation, in the layout of the book, and in several other techni- cal matters. A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Jaakko Tuohiniemi, who put the ball in play, helped me in countless ways in gaining my search material, and answered all my possible and impossible questions with great patience. Jaakko was always ready with whatever material or information I needed. I also thank Anna Rajala (Helsinki), for her continuous support and assistance in technical mat- ters during the preparation of my dissertation. I thank Universal Editions, Vienna, for permission to use excerpts from the score of Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Op. 11, which appear as examples in this work. The financial support of the University of Helsinki is gratefully acknowledged, without which this project could not have been completed. Acknowledgements —xi Last, but by no means least, I owe my loving thanks to my parents Mária and György Honti.