This work creates the sense of an odyssey, enhanced by the telling return of the first movement's tortuous and mysterious fugue theme towards the end of the final fourth movement. Impressive too is the Music for strings, percussion and celesta of 1937, one of many classic commissions by the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher. Its journey from primeval darkness to searing light makes for a gripping aural experience. He wrote virtuoso works to perform himself in the 1920s and 1930s, including the First and Second piano concertos, the Piano sonata, and the Sonata for two pianos and percussion. The last was written for himself and his second wife, Ditta Pasztorv, whom he had married in 1923 following his divorce from Marta.
The 1920s saw the consolidation of Bartok's international reputation as composer and pianist, both in solo music and partnering the great Hungarian violinists of the time, such as Joseph Szigeti. In the pantomime The miraculous Mandarin Bartok pushed to an audacious extreme these tendencies towards driving rhythmic exuberance and unusual orchestral colours (variations, or shades, of tone). His health was too frail for active participation in World War I during the period 1914 to 1917 he wrote the ballet The wooden prince and his Second string quartet, works that show the impression made by Stravinsky's rhythmic innovations in The rite of spring and Schoenberg's experiments with tonality. Starting in 1907, Bartok served as a professor of piano at the Budapest Academy, a position that gave him a degree of security and enabled him to continue his research into folklore, including a visit to northern Africa in 1913. The twin influences of Debussy and folk song formed the background to the composition of his first mature works, the First string quartet of 1908 and various short piano pieces, including the 14 Bagatelles. In 1909 he married his teenage pupil, Marta Ziegler, to whom he dedicated his one-act opera Bluebeard's castle, an allegorical study of the individual's ultimate isolation from the rest of humanity. From 1906, Bartok made annual trips, using an Edison phonograph as recording equipment, to collect songs not only in Hungary but also in Romania, Slovakia, and Transylvania.Īlso through Kodaly, Bartok was introduced to the music of Debussy, which was a revelation to him. This led to a lifelong collaboration with Zoltan Kodaly, a pioneer in the field. Both influences found expression in 1903 in the symphonic poem Kossuth, based on the life of the leader of Hungary's 1848 uprising.īartok found a further and more enduring outlet for his nationalist sentiments in Hungarian folk songs, which he started collecting in 1904. But in 19 he was profoundly affected by two new preoccupations: the music of Richard Strauss and the rising tide of Hungarian nationalism.
As a composer, like Dohnanyi he initially took Brahms as a model. There he was considered a virtuoso pianist of outstanding potential. In 1899 Bartok had to decide where to continue his studies, and although the Vienna Conservatoire was the obvious choice, Bartok followed the advice of his schoolfellow, Erno Dohnanyi, and went to the Budapest Academy.
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