Bartok

I've been reading so many Tuning Digests from so many
years back over the last 24 hours that I'm not sure whether
this was recently or not, but there was quite a bit of
info posted on Bartok's research into Balkan folk music,
and his scrupulous notation of the microtones, particularly
a very detailed one from my friend Jan Haluska in Slovakia.

Someone asked about this notation, and I too am interested.

I'd also like to know where in his compositions he used
microtones. I'm aware of only one example, the 'Burletta'
section of the 3rd movement of his 6th (and last) String
Quartet [1939].

Here, he used down-pointing arrows above the notes to indicate
'a 1/4-tone lower', and used the quarter-tones in only one
spot in the two violin parts, one part a quarter-tone lower
than the other, creating a 'quasi-unison', or, as Vyshnegradski
called it, an 'emphatic or expressive unision'.
[See Vyschnegradski, _Manual of Quartertone Harmony_,
transl. Darreg, in _Xenharmonikon 6_, p 29].

I know of no other microtones in Bartok's own music.
Any illumination would be appreciated.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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[Joe Monzo:]
>I'm aware of only one example, the 'Burletta' section of the 3rd movement
of his 6th (and last) String Quartet [1939].

...>I know of no other microtones in Bartok's own music. Any illumination
would be appreciated.

The following is taken from page 46 of H.H. Stuckenschmidt's "Twentieth
Century Music."

"Composers who have occasionally incorporated quarter-tones into otherwise
chromatic compositions include Ernest Bloch in his Piano Quintet, Georges
Enesco in his opera _Oedipus_, and Bartok in his Sonata for Solo Violin.
The violinist Rudolf Kolisch, a friend of Bartok, has said that the
quarter- and two-thirds-tones in this latter work contribute to the
thematic substance and are not used merely for colour."

"D. Stearns" wrote:

> From: "D. Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>
> [Joe Monzo:]
> >I'm aware of only one example, the 'Burletta' section of the 3rd movement
> of his 6th (and last) String Quartet [1939].
>
> ...>I know of no other microtones in Bartok's own music. Any illumination
> would be appreciated.

Quite a bit of his transcriptions have "quartertone" like notations of
melodies he collected. It is a shame he didn't have the tools and insight we
have now but then again he pioneered these studies (eastern folk music) His
early papers on folk music i find inspirational!
-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
www.anaphoria.com