A PERFORMING ANALYSIS OF BELA BARTOK’S THREE BURLESQUES, OP.8c by ERIKA CRINO B.Mus., The University of Victoria, 2000 M.Mus., The University of British Columbia, 2002 A THESIS SUBMITTED iN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Music) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 2006 © Erika CrinO, 2006 11 ABSTRACT Between 1908-19 11 Bela Bartok composed over one hundred pieces, considering only the piano solo repertoire. Bartok was particularly attached to many of these early works: he performed them throughout his career, he included some of them in his 1929 recording and, twenty years later, he also orchestrated five of the piano pieces from this period as the Hungarian Pictures. At the time of the composition of the Three Burlesques, Bartok had recently graduated from the Budapest Academy both in piano and composition. A young composer in his twenties, he was still very much in search of his own voice. Accordingly, most of these early works are quite short, and many are character pieces that explore a single compositional device. An extremely gifted pianist, Bartok was at the time in need for repertoire to perform during his many concert tours, and many of these pieces were in fact born from this need. In the period just preceding the composition of the Three Burlesques, Bartok discovered and started studying the musical traditions native to the rural areas of his country, later expanding his field of interest to include Bulgaria and Slovakia. The influence of folk-songs, evident in all of his mature musical output, is already manifest here. The Three Burlesques, Op.8c, unfortunately not very often performed today, are three short descriptive pieces, each experimenting harmonically within a traditional ABA form. They are technically demanding and successful in performance, and the second piece of the set, “Slightly Tipsy”, clearly shows the influence of Bartok’s folk-song research. This thesis addresses issues of particular interest to a performer, such as very practical problems of balance between the hands, harmonic consequences created by alternative choices in voicing, and problems in the interpretation of melodic material. This thesis explores also some practical observations that are evoked by the physical act of playing these pieces at the piano and goes on to connect this commentary on gestural aspects to the programmatic content described by each title. 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of contents iii List of examples iv Acknowledgments v CHAPTER 1: Introductory remarks 1 Three Burlesques 4 CHAPTER 2: Quarrel 7 Harmonic/motivic portrayal of quarrel 9 Quarrel between two hands 12 Conclusions 15 CHAPTER 3: Slightly Tipsy 17 Physically tipsy in performance 19 Tipsiness in form, melodic structure, harmony and rhythm 23 Conclusions 28 CHAPTER 4: [Capriccioso] 30 Capriccioso 30 Capriccioso: its sounds, its structure 35 Form 39 Conclusions 42 CHAPTER 5: The Burlesques as a set, and in their relationship to later works 44 Order and unity of the set 44 Relations with Bartok’s later piano music 46 BIBLIOGRAPHY 49 APPENDIX: Recital Programs 52 iv LIST OF EXAMPLES Throughout this thesis the symbol “R.n.” stands for “Rehearsal number” and “R.n. 95+4” will indicate four measures after rehearsal number 94. Example 2.1: Barták, “Quarrel”, m. 9-10. Example 2.2: reduction of m. 9-10 of Bartok’s “Quarrel”. Examples 2.3 and 2.4: reduction of m. 9-52 of Bartok’s “Quarrel”. Example 2.5: Bartok, “Quarrel”, mm. 133-144. Example 3.1: Bartok, “Slightly Tipsy”, m. 10. Example 3.2: Bartok, “Slightly Tipsy”, m. 25-28. Example 3.3: Bartok, “Slightly Tipsy”, m. 34. Example 3.4: Bartok, “Slightly Tipsy”, m. 54-55. Example 3.5: reduction of mm. 1 and 42 of the orchestral version of Bartok’s “Slightly Tipsy”, transposed to E minor. Example 4.1: Strauss, Till Eulenspiegel, reduction of mm. 113-116. Example 4.2: Stravinsky, Petrushka, reduction of R.n. 95-95+4 and 96+2. Example 4.3: BartOk, Wooden Prince, reduction of bassoon part between R.n. 142+3-142+4. Example 4.4: Bartok, “Capriccioso”, mm. 34-35 and 79-80. Example 5.1: Bartok, Piano Concerto No. 3, first mvt., R.n. 54-54+1. Example 5.2: Bartok, Piano Concerto No. 1, first mvt., R.n. 12+4-12+5. V ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My infinite gratitude goes to Dr. W. Benjamin, who not only helped and encouraged me immensely in every stage of this thesis, through many discussions and great wisdom in his comments and advice, but who also was extremely influential, throughout my degree, in expanding my ways of thinking and reading, as well as teaching me how to listen differently to music. Many thanks to Robert Silverman who tirelessly taught me, among many other things, never to be satisfied with what comes easy at the piano, but to shape and direct what one has first created in his mind. Special thanks to Mrs. Laurenda Daniells for her generosity and greatly contagious enthusiasm. Her infinite passion and love for anything alive will continue inspiring everybody who meets her. And finally, a great thanks goes to Brett, who has shared a long and important journey with me. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS It is a generally accepted that the year 1926 serves as a landmark in Bela Bartok’s musical output: the beginning of his new, second phase. After the composition of the Dance Suite in 1923, a silence, interrupted only by the Dorfszenen of 1924, preceded the creation of the Piano Sonata, the Out ofDoors suite, the Nine Little Pieces and the beginning of the Mikrokosmos, all composed in 1926. Similar periods of silence that led to intensely creative years occurred at other moments of his life. One such followed the great disappointment he experienced in 1905 at the Rubinstein Competition in Paris, which he had entered both as a performer and a composer (this second category with his Lisztian Rhapsody, Op.l, and his piano quintet), and which saw Backhaus and Brugnoli as winners in the two categories. The sense of a complete failure in Paris threw Bartok into a deep depression which only the acquaintance with Zoltán Kodály the following year could dispel. This friendship opened a new world of interests, experiences, and research opportunities for Bartok, who found new inspiration in the peasant music of the countryside, with its directness of expression, its modal scales and irregular rhythms. Between 1908 and 1911 this new outburst of creative activity produced an enormous volume of piano music: 14 Bagatelles, Op. 6, Ten Easy Pieces, eighty-five pieces in the set For Children, Two Elegies, Op. 8b, Three Burlesques, Op. 8c, Seven Sketches, Op. 9b, Two Rumanian Dances, Op. 8a, Four Dirges, Op. 9a, Deux Images and the Allegro Barbaro. The composition of the Three Burlesques, which are the object of this study, spanned this entire period. The first Burlesque was composed in 1908, that which became the third, in 1910, and the second, in 1911. The three pieces were published together as a set in 1912 by Rózsavolgyi and republished by Boosey & Hawkes in 1950.1 Bartok was particularly attached to these pieces, performing them throughout his life, either as a set or more often two at a time or individually.2 The second one, “A Little Tipsy”, appears to have been a particular favorite. It is included in his 1929 recording for His Master’s Voice and was also transcribed by him for orchestra as the fourth of the Hungarian Pictures in 1931 (his 1944 proposal3 of recording the whole set in New York unfortunately never materialized). Most of the general literature on Bartok’s works for piano almost completely ignores this early period, with the exception of a number of studies on the Bagatelles and Allegro Barbaro, preferring rather to focus on later works, mostly those written after the Suite, op.1 4, of 1916. Even a comprehensive study of Bartok’s piano music from a performer’s perspective, such as Barbara Nissman’s Bartok and the Piano, concentrates only “on the major piano works”, each chapter including a mere “overview and more general discussion of Bartok’s related minor works.”4 The book limits itself to some brief historical information about the composition of the Three Burlesques followed by some very concise performing suggestions regarding the use of a particular fingering or the importance of making the melody audible at all times.5 Benjamin Suchoff’s contribution to The Bartok Companion, which focuses specifically on the composer’s piano output between 1908 and 1911, gives a very brief historical introduction to the set before spending two paragraphs supporting his analysis of the first Burlesque as being based on a C PhrygianiLydian polymode. No further mention of this work is made nor is any analysis given of Antokoletz, p. 12-13. 2 see, for instance, the programs quoted in his letters. Bela Bartok Letters, p. 159 and 186. ibid., p. 339. ‘ Nissman, p. xi. ibid., p. 20 1-206. 2 the other two pieces.6 Another comprehensive source on Bartok’s piano music is David Yeomans’ Bartokfor Piano, in which there is but a single paragraph on each piece composing the Three Burlesques. Each describes general features of key center and character, and then lists some of the most immediate performing issues, such as tempos and technical difficulties.7 A comprehensive analysis of Bartok’s own recordings, specifically aimed towards the performing aspects of his music, is found in Steven Earl Gray’s DMA dissertation. It makes no mention of the second Burlesque, except for including it in the bibliography.