Allegro barbaro

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Allegro barbaro (BB 63, Sz. 49 ) is a piece for piano composed in 1911 by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók . The title of the piece, barbaro , is an allusion to Bartók's critics who called him a barbarian.

To the music

In the piece, Bartók develops a synthesis of traditional Hungarian folk sounds and modern harmony . Characteristic are hard hits that correspond to Bartók's ideas of the piano as drums , which are interspersed with simple melodies of Hungarian peasant music. These hard beats are contrasted in a drastic decrease in tempo and the transition to a cantable melody in one of the side themes. These strong fluctuations in the mood of the piece are additionally reinforced by the use of strong dissonances .

The piece is bitonal over long stretches . At the beginning z. B. established the key of F sharp minor in the accompaniment , to which a melody in natural A minor is then grafted. At the end of the piece, the bitonal character is once again vividly emphasized by underlining the final note of a unison passage clearly related to A minor with hammering F sharp minor chords.

Due to the fairly high tempo (up to 84 beats on a half) and complex chord structures , the piece - if performed exactly - has a high degree of difficulty; which is why pianists like Zoltán Kocsis , who have especially trained in the piano technique of Franz Liszt, have included Allegro barbaro in their repertoire.

various

In the pop music was Allegro Barbaro by the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer on their eponymous debut album under the name The Barbarian adapted.

There is a piece of the same name for solo piano by the French composer and pianist Charles Valentin Alkan (Études op. 35, No. 5). It is quite certain that Bartók knew this Allegro barbaro , as he had lessons from several Liszt students who were familiar with the works of Alkan. However, it has not been proven whether it is a deliberate allusion.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tadeusz A. Zieliński: Bartók . Atlantis Verlag Zurich and Freiburg i. Br. P. 158.
  2. ↑ See parlando broadcast by DRS 2: [...] written an "Allegro barbaro" long before Bartok.
  3. ↑ Position within the program Parlando of DRS 2