Hungarian Nationalism

Question 1

What happened at the treaty of Trianon?

Answer 1

The treaty defined new borders for Hungary, leaving it as a landlocked state. Hungary lost 70% of its territory/was left with only 28% of the land that had constituted the pre-war Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Question 2

How many folk songs did Bartok collect?

Answer 2

Collected just under 20,000 folk songs.

Mostly from Hungary, but also from Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, North Africa and Turkey.

Question 3

What are some features of Bartok’s ‘6 Romanian Dances’?

Answer 3

Composed in 1915, originally for piano. 
Modal
Lots of ornamentation from original folk tunes
Dance-like rhythms
Always melody and accompaniment
Chordal accompaniments/homophonic
Repeated ideas

Question 4

What field of study did Bartok originate?

Answer 4

Ethnomusicology

Question 5

What are the ‘Mikrokosmos’?

Answer 5

Bartok’s piano books for his son - they encapsulate the whole range of his style.
Written between 1926-1939
153 progressive piano pieces in 6 volumes
They develop in difficulty/virtuosity
Vol 5, no. 127 - ‘New Hungarian Folk Song’ - fusion of traditional folk melody and Western jazz styles (for 2 pianos)
Vol 5, no 113 exploits the Bulgarian Rhythm: 7/8 split into 2,2,3

Question 6

What did Bartok say about using folk music?

Answer 6

“A composer in search of new ways cannot be led by a better master”

Question 7

Summarise Bartok’s style

Answer 7

Fusion of folk and western styles
Used the character of folk music, not just the tunes, and assimilated it into his style
Very innovative (more so than kodaly) and further experimented with systems of harmony influenced by the scales of folk music (unusual combinations of keys etc)
More radical, experimentalist, modernist

Question 8

What innovations did Bartok bring to Classical music?

Answer 8

Additive rhythms/syncopation/offbeat accents
Extended technique
Use of folk song
Uneven metres
Tonal ambiguity/tonal centre determined not using functional harmony
Interesting instrumentation
Modes/pentatonic scale
Use of parallel 5ths
Bitonality
Dissonance
Classical forms discarded - used arches/palindromes/golden section proportions
Night music (nocturnal insects)

Question 9

Give some features of ‘Music for strings, percussion and celeste (1937)

Answer 9

Large scale, modernist work
Used features of folk such as Bulgarian rhythm (4th movement) - garland of different folk melodies
Other movements of the piece are modern and heavily dissonant

Question 10

What is Bartok’s Night music?

Answer 10

Musical style which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble/orchestra compositions in his mature period.
Characterised by eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies

Question 11

Give an example of a piece from Bartok’s Night music style

Answer 11

‘The Night’s Music’, from ‘Out of Doors’ - a set of 5 solo programmatic piano pieces
Paints the local environment
Tonal centre G or ambiguous tonality.
A highly dissonant arpeggiated cluster chord is repeated throughout the section on the beat.
The Hungarian Unka frog’s call is imitated in the piece. The call features throughout, disrespecting metre and tonality.
Nationalist because it imitates Hungarian nature (e.g. Unka frog) and is uniquely Bartokian in its contribution to the language of musical modernism.

Question 12

What is ‘Kossuth’?

Answer 12

Symphonic poem by Bartok, 1903
About the role of the general Lajos Kossuth in his 1849 campaign and defeat
Starts with a portrait of Kossuth then paints a picture of the Austrians approaching them by using a minor key parody of the imperial Austrian national anthem.
Nationalist because of Hungarian subject

Question 13

What is ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’?

Answer 13

One-act expressionist opera by Bartok.
Written in Hungarian (based on a French literary tale)
Lasts only over an hour with 2 singing characters onstage (Bluebeard and his wife, who have just eloped)
Uses a minor second motif, known as the ‘blood motif’ - for whenever Bluebeard’s wife, Judith, notices blood in the castle
Sprechstimme prologue
Not atonal but often polytonal - also passages of consonance and tonal harmony
Large orchestra with 8 offstage brass players
Heavily chromatic vocal parts and speech-ryhthm inflections
Nationalist because of Hungarian text/subject

Question 14

Name as many nationalist pieces by Bartok as you can

Answer 14

Mikrokosmos
6 Romanian Dances
The Night's Music
Kossuth
Bluebeard's castle
5 Songs, op 15
Music for strings, percussion and celeste

Question 15

What are the 5 Songs, op 15?

Answer 15

Erotic songs written for his 15 year old lover
Modernist, atonal style
Hungarian text

Question 16

What were Bartok and Kodaly’s dates?

Answer 16

Bartok: 1881-1945
Kodaly: 1882-1967

Question 17

When/how did Kodaly start collecting folk songs?

Answer 17

Started collecting folk songs independently of Bartok in 1905 but their close cooperation began shortly after - they collected them together until the outbreak of WWI

Question 18

What is the solfège system?

Answer 18

Music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music
Each note of the scale is given a memorable name (do re mi fa so la ti do)
Originated by Kodaly
Used to teach children

Question 19

What is the advantage of the solfège system? What features made it successful?

Answer 19

Helps people understand tonic equivalence
The hand signs are useful as a visual/kinaesthetic representation
Use of voice/singing makes it accessible
Good quality music used (folk, traditional children’s songs) rather than contriving music for teaching purposes

Question 20

What was Kodaly’s main output?

Answer 20

Choral music, especially for children

Question 21

What is ‘Psalmus Hungaricus’?

Answer 21

1923 Choral work for tenor, chorus and orchestra
Written to mark 50th anniversary of the town of Budapest.
Text based on psalm 55
Psalm tune used throughout in various ways (sometimes unison unaccompanied, sometimes with chromatic accompaniement etc)

Question 22

What makes ‘Psalmus Hungaricus’ nationalist?

Answer 22

Hungarian text
Piece is an allegory for Hungary’s struggles as a result of the Treaty of Trianon - parallels David’s struggle in the psalm
Kodaly never quotes actual Hungarian folk songs but the theme intergrates folk-like pentatonic melodies and plagal cadences to give the impression of quotation

Question 23

What is ‘Variations on a Hungarian folk song’?

Answer 23

1939 piece by Kodaly
Based on a folk song, ‘Fly, peacock, fly”
For full orchestra
Opens with a slow introduction based on folk song, followed by 16 variations
Accessible to everyone; Kodaly said that ‘no special musical knowledge whatever is needed to understand them’

Question 24

What is ‘Hary Janos’?

Answer 24

1926 Opera based on the stories of a soldier in the Austrian army, who tells of his exploits of winning the heart of the empress Marie Louise, wife of Napoleon and then single-handedly defeating Napoleon and his armies.
1927 Suite for orchestra has 6 movements

Question 25

What are some interesting features of the ‘Hary Janos Suite’?

Answer 25

Begins with an orchestral musical ‘sneeze’ (fast ascending scale played by most instruments, building up to an accented top note with cymbal/drum crash) - according to Hungarian folklore, if a statement is followed by a sneeze, it must be true.
3rd movement, ‘Song’ uses Hungarian folk(ish?) tune - unaccompanied viola, modal, free tempo/rubato
5th movement, ‘Intermezzo’ uses a cembalom (Eastern European instrument) playing heterophonic passagework - influence of verbunkos dance - played before Hungarian Kings in recruiting process.

Question 26

Name key works by Kodaly

Answer 26

Psalmus Hungaricus (1923)
Hary Janos (1926)
Variation on a Hungarian folk song (1939)

Question 27

What are the nationalist features of Bartok and Kodaly’s music?

Answer 27

Use of folk melodies 
Music as an allegory for nationalistic crises
Night music style
Synthesis of Eastern and Western styles
Use of Hungarian Texts
Incorporation of Hungarian History
Use of Hungarian stories/subject matter

Question 28

Compare Bartok and Kodaly

Answer 28

Both used folk music
Kodaly did not adopt radical techniques like Bartok - he used folk tunes into a traditional, tonal style influenced by Debussy
Bartok further assimilated the folk idiom, evolving a system of harmony influenced by the scales of folk music (deeply influential on later composers)
Kodaly’s most important achievements are in vocal and choral music, drawing on Hungarian folk heritage, and in his teaching system, founded on singing.