39. évfolyam / 2. szám (2001)

Themes of Béla Bartók with Folkloristic Content
Bálint Sárosi

According to Bartók, the highest degree of the influence peasant music exerts on art music is: “When neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in [a composer’s] music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music.” Going along The Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and referring also to other “non folkloristic” works of his, I attempt to contribute with some glosses to a better understanding of Bartók’s quoted words.
Just the first theme of the Music… can be closely paralleled with the stanza structure of a Székely-Hungarian ballad. The main characteristics of both, Bartók’s subject and folk tune are: four short lines, narrow compass, free (actually parlando) rhythm, unison presentation. The only, but of course substantial difference between the two is that in opposition to the incomplete pentatony of the ballad, Bartók’s theme has a chromatic scale filling up totally the fifth range. The case of the first subject of the 2nd movement is similar. Its structure is the same as that of a “new style” Hungarian folk song. Its rhythm and even more its scale however have no precedents in folk music.
The rhythm of the main theme of the movement 3 has its root in the 19th century verbunkos music. Some of the further subjects of the Music… can be related to the so called old style fifth-shifting Hungarian tunes. Bagpipe tunes also served as model for several bartókian subjects. Bartók adapts as model to his themes not only folk tunes in the literal sense, but also such marginal occurencees of folklore as swineherd’s horn signals and even children’s rhymes.

“…Seeking the National Tone of Our Own”
János Bereczky

Kodály’s first two journeys of collecting folk songs
and the orchestral phantasy Nyári este (Summer Evening)

The turn of the 19th and 20th century was a period of seeking and waiting in Hungarian musical life. Everybody talked about the necessity of the creation or recreation of Hungarian music. “But where to take the stimulation and draw the inspiration from?” Kodály asked.
In August 1905 and in August 1906 he made his first two journeys in order to collect genuine folk songs in the villages of the area of his childhood. During these journeys he collected and notated 222 melodies.
He composed Nyári este (Summer Evening), his early orchestral work in August, September and October 1906. The composition is obviously strongly influenced by folk music, but there is a great query. The original version of 1906 exists only in the form of a manuscript which has been lost. The printed score of Nyári este is the revised edition of 1929 made by the composer of mature age. Is it possible that the recent and in fact very preliminary experience of Kodály’s first contact with folk song has influenced the musical expression of Nyári este as radically as the version of 1929 proves?
The author has found a copy of the original manuscript in the archive of the National Library of Hungary. So, for the first time, it is possible to study the problem which has occupied researchers’ minds throughout the past century: to what extent folk music has influenced the original music of Nyári este and to what extent are the influences revisions to the published score?
The author compares the themes and motives of Nyári este’s original version to the collection of 222 folk songs of the first two journeys. Many melodic details prove indisputably how even in 1906 Kodály could make use of musical idioms and phrases of the relatively small material with which he recently became acquainted for the “creation or re-creation of Hungarian music”. Especially the frequent usage of the pentatonic passages is striking.
The long-desired new and authentic Hungarian tone was born in Nyári este at a stroke. Despite the genius of Kodály as a composer this new tone was influenced as much by the peasant music of Hungary, so it was really a “national tone of our own”.

The Bithematic Strategies of Sonata Form Movements
Pál Richter

Since formal analysis has been primarily focused on sonata form movements and cycles, each age has been faced with the dichotomy and contradictory nature of formal models and the individual examples of forms. A movement may comply with the requirements of sonata form from a formal point of view, but the dimension of parts and the hierarchy of themes inferred from the structural model do not correspond to musical processes governed by other principles. The sonata principle owed its popularity for over 150 years of musical composition to its special flexibility and adaptability to various musical thoughts. According to contemporary conviction there is no single formula to describe all the pieces related to the sonata principle due to the number, diversity and various musical styles of the pieces. This article shows various bithematic strategies of sonata form movements. Although the analytical literature discusses bithematic structure sonata form in connection with double themes and motifs in the first thematic groups of Brahms symphonies, the concept allows for an interpretation in a broader sense as well. Bithematicism may be achieved in different ways depending on where the second theme is introduced in the movement. And as it is demonstrated, this does not mean an exclusiveness of themes in the movement but a distinct role in the musical process. The two themes may be related by motifs but are distinctly independent and perceivable in sound. A second theme interpreted in the above way may appear in three parts of the movement: in the development, in the tonic section directly following the first theme, or in the second group in another key. It follows from this that themes may be related by motifs but are distinctly independent and perceivable in sound. A movement: in the tonic section directly following the first theme, in the secondary or second group in another key, or in the development. These three cases mentioned above are discussed in detail.

Vorstufen eines kompositionsgeschichtlichen Paradigmawechsels – von der liturgischen Formel zum Ordinariumzyklus
Gábor Kiss

Der Begriff des ordinarium missae stellt in den musikhistorischen Reflexionen das Symbol eines solchen kompositorischen Paradigmas dar, welches die mittelalterliche liturgische Einstimmigkeit und die mit der artistischen Mehrstimmigkeit zusammenhängende kompositionsgeschichtliche Entwicklung voneinander trennt. Aufgrund etlicher späteren Angaben und Beobachtungen der Fachliteratur erscheint es uns jedoch als notwendig, die Frage differenzierter stellen zu müssen, die einschlägigen Fakten, hauptsächlich die auf dem Gebiet der Einstimmigkeit zum erneuten Überdenken heranzuziehen. Im vorliegender Aufsatz wird versucht, jene, das Thema betreffende Ansichten einer eingehenden Textkritik zu unterwerfen, und diese mit den Besonderheiten der mittelalterlichen Tradition der einstimmigen Melodien des Meflordinariums, darunter mit eigenen Forschungsergebnissen zu konfrontieren. Anhand dieser Überlegungen ist nicht allein die historisch primäre Existenz des einstimmigen Ordinariumzyklus zu bestätigen, sondern ebenso jene Tatsache, daß dessen ideelle Grundlagen gleichsam in der mittelalterlichen Melodieüberlieferung zu suchen sind.

Kazakh Folksongs from the Two Edges of the Steppe, 2
János Sipos

These four articles are to serve as comprehensive study on the folk music of two Kazakh ethnic groups, one living on the eastern shore of the Caspian See and the other living some 3000 km apart to the East, in Bayan Ölgiz, West Mongolia.
In the first article I wrote about the antecedents of my expeditions, described the collecting trip to South-West Kazakhstan and began to characterize the Kazakh musical styles.
In the second article we continue to make acquaintances with the remaining south-western Kazakh folk music styles and types, and with their connections to the folk music of other Turkic peoples and the Hungarian.
It is worth mentioning that an English book based on these articles was published by the Academian Publishing House under the title János Sipos, Kazakh Folksongs from the Two Edges of the Steppe with a CD supplement (www.akkrt.hu).