National Fusion in Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2, Op.

17

Daniel Huang

Dr. Zach Buie

MUS 353 - Music History and Literature III

May 1, 2020
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When Béla Bartók heard the maid, Lidi Dósa, singing a folk song at a Transylvanian

resort in 1904, he was moved by her music. This led to Bartók beginning his lifelong work in

recording and collecting folk music. The ethnomusicological work he did would take him

throughout Hungary and beyond. Bartók was influenced by what he found in those folk tunes,

and he began to infuse elements of those national styles into his compositions. By the time of the

First World War, Bartók’s use of folk music had become integrated, and his works at this period

achieved mastery in national fusion. The sounds and characteristics of various folk styles became

his own organic language. Bartok’s national fusion and integration of folk styles into his musical

vocabulary are masterfully reflected in his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 (1914-1917).

Prior to his interest in old-style folk music (or as Bartók distinguished it,“peasant”

music), Bartók was working in a nationalistic, albeit late-Romantic style best represented by his

Straussian tone-poem Kossuth. This piece drew strong Hungarian influences from Verbunkos, a

folk dance popularized by the Gypsies (Romani), and it was identified with Hungary during the

nineteenth-century.1 The serendipitous yet fateful encounter with Lidi Dósa, however, sparked

Bartók's curiosity in the style of folk music the Translyvanian maid sang to him. The many

ethnomusicological trips and studies undertook by both Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, another

Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist who worked closely with Bartók, revealed to them

that there existed “among the peasants...a shared Hungarian style but a repertoire and performing

style entirely dissimilar to those of gypsy music and magyar nóta (Hungarian tune).”2 Bartók

was keen about the musical characteristics found in these folk songs, which would eventually

liberate the restrictions imposed onto his earlier works. These elements would allow Bartók to

1 Amanda Bayley, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Bartók (Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press 2001), 24-25.
2 Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press, 1998), 78.
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forsake his early conventional style. Bartók outlined his folk music discoveries in his brief 1921

autobiography:

The outcome of these studies was of decisive influence upon my work, because it freed me
from the tyrannical rule of the major and minor keys. The greater part of the collected treasure,
and the more valuable part, was in old ecclesiastical or old Greek modes, or based on more
primitive (pentatonic) scales, and the melodies were full of most free and varied rhythmic
phrases and changes of tempi, played both rubato and giusto. It became clear to me that the old
modes, which had been forgotten in our music, had lost nothing of their vigour. Their new
employment made new rhythmic combinations possible. This new way of using the diatonic scale
brought freedom from the rigid use of the major and minor keys, and eventually led to a new
conception of the chromatic scale, every tone of which came to be used freely and
independently.3
Beginning in 1908 with his Fourteen Bagatelles for piano, Bartók began formulating a

compositional language that would infuse the various folk styles he studied into his classical

compositions. Bartók would eventually branch out and include other folk influences (EX:

Romanian, Slovak, Arabic etc.) in stark contrast to Kodály, who exclusively borrowed from

Hungarian sources.4 Bartók was motivated by a realization he and Kodály had that analyzing folk

music from neighbouring people is indispensable to an informed understanding of Hungarian

peasant music.5 Bartók explained:

I started these investigations on entirely musical grounds and pursued them in areas
which were purely Hungarian. Later on I became fascinated by the scientific implications of my
musical material and extended my work over territories which were linguistically Slovakian and
Romanian.
Bartók developed his five categories (or levels) of integrating folk music, and he

personally named three of them in his Columbia University lecture in 1941 (or 1942) with

respective musical examples:

One of these categories represents transcriptions where the used folk melody is the more
important part of the work. The added accompaniment and eventual preludes and postludes may
only be considered as the mounting of a jewel. [Bartók - Romanian Folk Dance - #5]
3 Béla Bartók: A Memorial Review (New York City, Boosey and Hawkes, 1950)
4 Béla Bartók, Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Schoff (New York City, St. Martin’s Press,
1976), 350.
5 Gillies, Bartók Companion, 53.
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The second category represents transcriptions where the importance of the used melodies
and the added parts is almost equal. [Kodȧly - Seven Piano Pieces, Op. 11 - II. Székely Lament]
In the third category, the added composition-treatment attains the importance of an
original work, and the used folk melody is only to be regarded as a kind of motto. [Bartók -
Eight Improvisations - III]6
Although Bartók didn’t include the last two categories in his Columbia lecture, Schoff

claims that the fourth level is when “the melody is composed in imitation of a genuine folk

tune,” while the fifth is the highest level, in which “neither folk tune nor its imitation is used, the

work is pervaded by the atmosphere of folk music. Thus, for example, the music might have

Hungarian pentatonic turns, Romanian bagpipe motif structure, Slovak modal features, and so

on.”7

Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 best represents the composer’s national fusion

period from 1908 to 1923 and his ingenuity in integrating folk music, particularly in the first and

second movements. Composed during the First World War, the piece approaches folk music

integration in a way new to Bartók at the time by continuing the ideas and experimentations first

formulated in Fourteen Bagatelles. Though Bartók’s First String Quartet from 1909 also referred

to folk music in the final movement, it did not yet reach the level of national fusion the Second

Quartet achieved. When Bartók composed this Quartet, the First World War largely halted his

ethnomusicological activities. Though he focused primarily on composition during the war,

Bartók continued to collect folk songs, gathering them from Austro-Hungarian soldiers as well as

in the Slovak regions (1915) and briefly in Transylvania (1916). Bartók presented some of those

folk songs at a patriotic concert in January 1918 in Vienna, which was attended by Empress Zita

of Austria-Hungary.8 He also wrote piano transcriptions of folk music at this time, which
6 Bartók, Essays, 350.
7 Benjamin Schoff, Béla Bartók: A Celebration (Lanham and Oxford, Scarecrow Press, 2004),
4-5.
8 Malcolm Gillies. "Bartók, Béla." Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.
https://www-oxfordmusiconline-
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includes Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Music, Romanian Christmas Carols, Sonatina, and

Romanian Folk Dances. Bartók considered these transcriptions as “a negligible part of my

output.”9

In contrast to his piano transcriptions, String Quartet No. 2 contains no quotation of

actual folk music. Rather, Bartók was drawing from isolated characteristics of folk music. He

would elaborate and recombine those characteristics while respecting the integrity of its sources,

which was a hallmark of his mature style and of Level 5 folk music integration - evoking the

atmosphere of folk music rather than quoting or imitating it. Finally in this Quartet, Bartók

achieved a kind of fusion he had not reached at a larger scale previously. He realized his

technique of national fusion into more Classical forms such as Sonata-Allegro, Rondo, and

Variation, and presenting those folk influences in a more abstract manner rather than

programmatic.10

The first movement of the Second String Quartet, set in a free Sonata-Allegro form, made

references to both Hungarian and Romanian styles. The use of fourths, found first in the opening

played by the first violin, evokes old Hungarian peasant music.11 This motif would later return at

the end of the first movement as well as in the third movement. Bartók was fond of the frequent

use of fourths in old Hungarian music, and he suggested that such use of the interval even evokes

quartal harmony, a clear break from the tertian-based functional harmony of most European

music.12 Along with fourths, the tritone also has a substantial presence in this quartet, appearing

at the end of the aforementioned opening melody. Bartók described the tritone as a phenomenon

com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-
9781561592630-e-0000040686.
9 Bartók, Essays, 350.
10 Frigyesi, Budapest, 233.
11 Schoff, Celebration, 66-67.
12 A Memorial Review, 73.
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created by Nature herself.13 Bartók’s interest in this symmetrical interval is seeded in works from

this period, and his obsession with the tritone would continue to inform his later compositions.

To Bartók, this musical fascination was very much rooted in his ethnomusicological studies,

especially in the Romanian and Slovak modes.14

In the recapitulation section of the first movement (Four measures before rehearsal 21 -

Tempo I), where two violins are playing the melody while being accompanied by pizzicato cello

chords, Bartók looked to an instrumentation typical to Romanian music. Since 1908, Bartók

began to include elements derived from Romanian folk music, which he thought highly of for its

richness in tradition.15 This influence was first evoked in his Two Romanian Dances, Op. 8a

(1909-1910) for piano.16 Bartók’s Romanian interest was also reflected in several of his piano

transcriptions he wrote contemporary to the Second Quartet, such as Romanian Christmas Songs,

Sonatinas, and Romanian Folk Dances. 17

Schoff described this moment in the Quartet as a nod to Romanian violin duets, in which

the duet’s “first violin plays the melody. The second violin, with three strings and a flat bridge, is

played with a loosely strung bow.”18 The Romanian character is enforced by Bartók’s use of

bimodality, setting the cello in A major and the two violins in A minor, which corresponds with

his discovery of “simultaneous use of major and minor thirds even in instrumental folk music.”

In his Harvard Lecture in 1943, Bartók discussed about the “queer-sounding chords” in a

Romanian dance he recorded and transcribed in 1912 - a melody Bartók re-worked into the his

Romanian Folk Dances for piano (No.1 - Dance with Sticks). In Bartók’s direct transcription, the

13 Bayley, Cambridge Companion, 156.

14 Ibid.
15 Malcolm Gillies, The Bartók Companion (Portland, Amadeus Press, 1993), 147.
16 Gillies, Béla Bartók.
17 Bartók, Essays, 350.
18 Schoff, Celebration, 67-68.
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melody is accompanied by a series of blocked chords not too dissimilar to the Recapitulation

section of the first movement of Second String Quartet. Bartók labeled points of cross-

relationship in those “queer-sounding chords” from the dance, which the Quartet also evokes

with the “simultaneous use of major and minor thirds.”19 The cross-relationships of thirds would

be further explored in the following movement.

Although Bartók only mentioned influences of Arabic music in Suite, Op. 14 and Dance

Suite, the second movement of String Quartet No. 2 is among the first works Bartók incorporated

Arabic folk music, informed by his ethnomusicological excursion to the Biskra district in Algeria

in 1913. This Arabic Rondo-Variation that is the second movement begins with an aggressive

gesture which sets the tone of the music. The main theme is introduced by a pulsing, ostinato

accompaniment in the second violin and viola, which resembles the percussion section of Arabic

ensembles. This accompaniment corresponds with what Bartók heard in Arabic percussionists,

which traditionally begin the performances. He would also use this reference in the opening of

the third movement of the Op. 14 Suite, another Arab-influenced piece.20 Bartók observed in his

Algerian trip that the percussion accompaniments work independently of melodies in such

music, and most of the time these Arab musicians play each melody with one type of

accompanying rhythm.21 Bartók spoke about the “nearly constant use of percussion instruments

to accompany melodies in strict rhythm...The high-level development of the rhythm is in

contradistinction with the primitivism of the range and form.”22

19 Bartók, Essays, 369-370.

20 Sylvia B. Parker, “Béla Bartók’s Arab Music Research and Composition,” Studio
Musicologica XLVIII/3-4 (2008), 448-45.
21 Ibid, 441.
22 Ibid, 439.
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Bartók’s Arabic beat-patterns are usually his own invention, and he would often change

the modes of these drum-beats, which breaks from authentic Arab performances.23 The drum-

beats in the Second Quartet, played by the violins and viola, appear in various guises: first as

repeated staccato octave quavers at four measures before rehearsal 1, then more harshly as

octaves a second apart at two measures after rehearsal 4, and with accented neighbour tones on

down beats at four measures after rehearsal 7.24 Though Bartók had to translate Arabic

percussion playing into string writing, he compensated with the use of repeating notes, staccatos,

accents, and pizzicatos throughout the movement.25

The first theme in the second movement, introduced by the First Violin, mostly uses a

narrow intervallic range, and it prominently features ostinato thirds that oscillates between major

and minor thirds along with some melodic embellishments - all influences of Arab music. As

mentioned earlier, the ostinato thirds may be a reference to the “simultaneous use of major and

minor thirds” in the recapitulation section of the first movement. It is quite extraordinary to

consider this cross-movement reference, as each refers to very distinct folk influences

(Romanian in first movement, and Arabic in second movement). As simple as the motif may be,

the “primitivism” of the ostinato thirds successfully conveys a similarly barbaric or peasant

impression. Bartók would use this idea in his later music, especially in Dance Suite.26 Bartók

even seemed to refer to this movement in his influential essay “The Influence of Peasant Music

on Modern Music”, which summarizes the melodic treatment of the Quartet’s second movement:

Let us for instance take a melody that moves on two successive notes only (there are
many such melodies in Arab peasant music). It is obvious that we are much freer in the invention
of an accompaniment than in the case of a melody of a more complex character. These primitive
melodies moreover, show no trace of the stereotyped joining of triads. That again means greater

23 Ibid, 448-452.
24 Ibid, 442-444
25 Ibid, 415.
26 Gillies, Bartók Companion, 238.
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freedom for us in the treatment of the melody. It allows us to bring out the melody most clearly
by building round it harmonies of the widest range varying along different keynotes.27
Whether Bartók had this in mind or not, he might have evoked Arab exorcism in the end

of the second movement and the transition to the third movement. The music at the Prestissimo

before rehearsal 42 begins with a frenzied build up, climaxing to the fortissimo ending at the

Sostenuto Molto. Similarly to the ending of the third movement from Suite, Op. 14, the quarter-

note duplets may be depicting the tribesmen chanting “Allah!”, a scene that would not have been

out of place in Arabic folk performances. The ecstasy and abandon of the second movement

would give way to the morbid and desolate atmosphere of the third movement.28

In many ways, Bartók created a world of folk music that is not unlike any other folk

culture, and the Second String Quartet is a proud monument of this imaginary, yet organic world.

Bartók composed this work as he underwent an “evolutionary kind of compositional

apprenticeship” while continuing to record and transcribe folk music.29 Various sections of this

Quartet imitated and embodied the idiosyncrasies and ethnic spirit of musical cultures Bartók

studied closely. Those folk music traditions are not simply just genuine Hungarian, Romanian,

and Arabic folk music, but rather they are invented and imaginary folk music which resides in

the realm of Bartók’s music. His aesthetical ideas set him apart from 19th Century Nationalism

and Exoticism. Because of his ingenuity, Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 brings together peasant

music and art music to form a unique and modern work of art.

27 A Memorial Review, 73.

28 Parker, Arab Music, 454.
29 Schoff, Celebration, 69.
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Bibliography

Bartók, Béla. Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Schoff. New York City: St. Martin’s Press,

1976.

Bartók, Béla. Second String Quartet. Reprint, London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1939.

Bayley, Amanda, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bartók. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2001.

Béla Bartók: A Memorial Review. New York City: Boosey and Hawkes, 1950.

Frigyesi, Judit. Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest. Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press, 1998.

Gillies, Malcolm, ed. The Bartók Companion. Portland: Amadeus Press, 1993.

Gillies, Malcolm. "Bartók, Béla." Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 28 Apr. 2020.

https://www-oxfordmusiconline-

com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/o

mo-9781561592630-e-0000040686.

Parker, Sylvia B., “Béla Bartók’s Arab Music Research and Composition.” Studio Musicologica

XLVIII/3-4 (2008).

Schoff, Benjamin. Béla Bartók: A Celebration. Lanham and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004.