Béla Bartók - String Quartets
​by Judith Eckelmeyer

Béla Bartók in 1927

Bartók's six string quartets are among the finest examples of the genre. Their performance as a corpus makes a fitting homage to the composer on the 100th anniversary of his birth, for they exemplify his compositional growth over nearly all of his creative life. The time frame that they mark, 1908 to 1939, excludes only a few major works: the earlier Kossuth, two suites for orchestra, and a number of songs and piano pieces; and the later Concerto for Orchestra, Sonata for Solo Violin, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Viola Concerto, which was reconstructed and orchestrated later by Tibor Serly. The chronology of the quartets provides an interesting picture of the stylistic changes and relationships among them: the "romantic" First and Second Quartets separated by a hiatus of nine years; then, after a full decade the concise Third and radically different Fourth Quartets in a space of only a year (1927 and 1928); six years later, the Fifth Quartet, structurally  and stylistically akin to the Fourth; and in 1939, five years later, the distinctive Sixth Quartet. 

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Bartók's FIRST STRING QUARTET, op. 7 (1908) is an astonishingly beautiful and emotionally intense work in three movements. Its entire fabric seems related to the first movement's opening motive, consisting of clearly identifiable intervals of a descending sixth followed by a descending half-step, then a rising sixth and another descending half-step. The commentary accompanying the complete String Quartets of Béla Bartók (New York: Boosey and Hawkes, 1945) calls the passage a "slow Fugue of a truly Beethovenian spirit and dignity... [in] the spirit of the opening of the great C sharp minor quartet." The abundant expressive markings, the consistent polyphonic texture, and the extended tonality of the first movement place the quartet in a late romantic environment, very much in the shadow of both Beethoven and Brahms, but the means for achieving thematic cohesion remain a constant in Bartók's works.

The second movement is approached by an accelerating bridge section in shifting triple and duple meter, its theme built on an inverted variant of the first movement theme. The main body of the movement, Allegretto, begins with still another variant of the motive which permeates the movement. A vigorous pizzicato rhythm in the 'cello, just prior to the coda, forms a rhythmic bond to the third movement. Striking whole-tone scales in the concluding section appear to be a legacy of Bartók's study of Debussy's music in the previous year.

The Allegro introduction to the final movement begins with the vigorous second-movement rhythm propelling a further variant of the first-movement motive. Punctuating extended chords introduce a rhapsodic 'cello statement, again incorporating the now-familiar motivic principle, and after a similar solo by the first violin, the introduction falls away into the main part of the movement, Allegro vivace. The opening measures contain an interesting simultaneous use of a clear statement of our motive against agitated repetitions of one of its components--the half-step, sounded in the second violin's E against the first violin's F. The half-step is soon the focus of the 'cello's repetitions of B, with A-sharp and C surrounding the central note. The tumultuous energy slows to an intense Adagio, where the Hungarian short-long rhythm appears in both melody and accompaniment. The subsequent sections of varying tempos rework these motivic and rhythmic ingredients through extensive contrapuntal treatment, concluding with a tremendous momentum toward the final dissonant chord which, on analysis, is subtly tonal, built in thirds stacked above E but omitting a G.

Bartók's String Quartet No. 1
Hungarian String Quartet ​

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Bartók dedicated the SECOND STRING QUARTET, Op. 17 (1971) to the members of the Hungarian Quartet (Waldbauer, Tomesváry, Kornstein, and Kerpely), who were instrumental in introducing the work publicly. The commentary in the Boosey and Hawkes edition of the six String Quartets refers to this three-movement composition as representative of "the composer in his full maturity... [It is] a most expressive, truly romantic work, intensive in feeling, and it remains one of the most beautiful pieces Bartók has ever written." In unpublished notes about the Second Quartet, violinist Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet provides this insight: "This piece was completed in 1917, while Europe was in the throes of the war and the old order was being swept away; Perceptions of the world and of oneself had to change. Symbolically, the Second Quartet is about that changing. Bartók may not have consciously intended it as such; his uncompromising esthetic principles may have prevented him from allowing too easy a programmatic explanation of his creative process. But in a historical perspective, this piece must be seen as a borderline between two eras; it looks backward to a time of romantic yearnings, reflects the violence of the present, and expresses despair for the future, as well as wondering what direction the future will take in the aftermath of great conflict." 

The first movement's sonata-allegro structure, richly colored chords, wide-ranging sweeping melodic ideas, and moments of rhythmic flux reminiscent of Debussy's La Mer are strongly contrasted by the second movement, Allegro motto capriccioso. Called by Drucker "a diabolical scherzo...[with] the most savage sonorities that had yet been heard in chamber music, "the movement displays repeated acute dissonances, thick chords, violent accents, and the glissando, which relate to the Magyar music of Bartók's research and become a hallmark of the later quartets. Only his earlier Allegro Barbaro of 1911 matches the violence of the dissonances in this movement. Swirling like a whirlwind, it hardly ceases its motor rhythm, but churns through its final ascent to come to a thudding halt.

The third movement, Lento, opens with a falling interval strongly reminiscent of the motto of the first quartet. Creating extra voices with passages of double stopping, Bartók weaves an eerie kind of inner dialogue in this music, culminating in a section where paired voices in octaves discourse canonically.

Bartók's Second String Quartet
The Juilliard String Quartet (Robert Mann - Isidore Cohen - Raphael Hillyer - Claus Adam)

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The THIRD STRING QUARTET (1927), dedicated to the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, is the most compressed of the six quartets. Bartók divided it into continuously unfolding sections: "Prima parte," moderato; "Seconda parte," Allegro; "Ricapitulazione della prima parte," Moderato; and "Coda," Allegro molto. Built principally on harmonies of seconds and fourths and a melodic ascending fourth and descending third, the first section also introduces a passage in which the violins play brief rhythmic patterns sul ponticello (at the bridge), while viola and 'cello provide a muted ostinato accompaniment: this is the sonority of "night music," which reappears extensively in the Fourth Quartet. This section also includes some of Bartók's fullest writing in the quartets, with triple stops in all instruments forming thick chords. One must look to the Fourth Quartet for writing that exceeds those demands. Canonic treatment of ideas also abounds in this section.

The second part is frantically active with constant meter changes, throwing the choral accompaniment in the 'cello part into mad syncopation. A four-note scale pattern seems to compete with a dance-like modal melody for attention in the upper voices. Bartók calls for a number of coloristic effects in this section: single note and chord glissandos, passages sul ponticello, col legno (playing the string with the wood of the bow), sul tastiera (bowing near the fingerboard), and a punta d'arch (playing at the point of the bow), all at a breathtaking pace, and frequently in canon or fugato.

The "recapitulation" treats the motive of the "first part" in reverse, through contrapuntal sections and with glissando effects and martellato (talon) bowing (very abrupt releases, here designated to be at the nut end of the bow). The coda begins with the glassy sound of sul ponticello sweeping scales and gradually swarms to normal bowing and a melodic idea derived from the "second part." The canonic dicplacement of an eighth note and a half-step in the violins against vast falling glissando canonic chords in viola and 'cello are only one instance of the complexity of structure Bartók has built into the swirl of sound.

Bartók's Third String Quartet
Juilliard String Quartet
Areta Zhulla, violin | Ronald Copes, violin | Roger Tapping, viola | Astrid Schween, cello

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The FOURTH STRING QUARTET (1928), dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet (Alphonse Onnou, Laurent Halleux, Germain Prévost, and Robert Mass), is the first of the two five-movement arch-form quartets. The outer movements are grounded in a C tonality and share Allegro tempo designations as well as thematic material. The second and fourth movements are built around E and are Prestissimo and Allegretto, respectively. They share thematic material and are repositories of many special effects: the second movement is played almost entirely with mutes, while the fifth is entirely pizzicato--but employing at least four different types of touch in the plucking technique. The middle movement, Non trope lento, centers on A-flat; it is one of Bartók's most haunting treatments of a style called "night music." Here lush sustained dissonances alternate vibrato and non-vibrato chords in the upper instruments, while a long rhapsodic "tárogató" melody* is presented in the 'cello. Occasionally the first violin provides a chirping sound and answers the 'cello's melody; the viola and second violin have brief melodies, also set against a mysterious background.

Bartók's use of the architectonic arch was not an innovation, for Brahms had used the principle in his seven-movement German Requiem. What is striking and refreshing is the enormously rich spectrum of colors through which Bartók has us pass as listeners, all the while deriving his materials from recycled motivic units that at least subconsciously unify the work as we hear it.

*A tárogató is a single reed instrument which Halsey Stevens, in The Life and Music of Béla Bartók (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), explains is associated with "pastoral melancholy;" "tárogató" melodies "have a quiet, rather static, but nevertheless florid character, the principal notes being surrounded with chromatic embellishments." 

Bartók's Fourth String Quartet
Quatuor Ebène
Pierre Colombet, violin I | Gabriel Le Magadure, violin II | Mathieu Herzog, viola | Raphaël Merlin, cello

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The FIFTH QUARTET (1934) was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and dedicated to Mrs. Sprague-Coolidge. It is the structural fraternal twin of the Fourth Quartet, having five movements and containing thematic and tempo pairing between the first and fifth, and second and fourth movements, with the third as the pivot. However, in contrast to the Fourth Quartet, the Fifth's center is not a slow movement but rather a Scherzo alla
​ bulgarese, and the second and fourth movement are Adagio molto and Andante, respectively. The outer Allegro movements center on B-flat, again providing a focal point for a highly flexible harmonic language. In his notes on the quartets, Eugene Drucker points out that by 1934, Bartók "had relaxed his harmonic idiom considerably; it came to be based increasingly on Balkan and Asiatic modal scales, and in the slow movements there were breathtakingly beautiful references to triadic harmony." While these "references" do exist, however, Bartók's style still shows evidence that he continued exploring atonal implications of tritones, chromatic scales, and exotic modes. And in this more than any of the previous quartets, the variety of rhythmic patterns reflects the composer's integration of Balkan dance characteristics into his composition.

The Scherzo alla bulgarese is especially interesting from a metrical standpoint. Organized in a traditional three-part format of Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo, the movement works on a flexible but consistent metrical principle of additive rhythms. The Scherzo's meter is noted as 4+2+3, giving a total of nine eighth notes but in a consistently asymmetrical pattern of stresses. The Trio's meter varies between 3+2+2+3, 2+3+2+3, and 2+3+3+2, giving variants on a ten-beat measure. The overlapping entries of contrapuntal melodies serve to complicate these meters with cross rhythms, yet the effect is one of great vivacity rather than gross confusion.

The quartet's Final, Allegro vivace, begins with a tentative-sounding test-pattern of a few rising and falling scale snippets but then breaks into a vigorous dance-like section built around modal scales and a relatively four-square rhythm. After treating the material in a number of ways and interspersing contrasting material, Bartók introduces in an Allegretto, con indifferenza a moment of tonal harmony (A major) and great rhythmic and melodic simplicity--except that when the melody enters for the second time, in the first violin, it is "out of tune" by a half-step. The "joke" recalls a similar effect in Mozart's Musical Joke and finds an echo in the third movement of the last quartet, five years later.

In spite of the obvious concentration on metrical elements in this quartet, Bartók has continued his practice of relating movements thematically. A story of the beginnings and ending of the first, second, fourth, and fifth movements and the Trio of the third indicates that a close bond exists among them in the use of a brief scale fragment, rising or falling, transformed through glissando-like grace notes, trills and so on. The underlying cohesion of the entire quartet might be surmised from these few instances of Bartók's structural gaming.

Bartók's String Quartet No. 5
Juilliard String Quartet

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Halsey Stevens, in The Life and Music of Béla Bartók (see below), reports that Bartók began composing the SIXTH QUARTET (1939) in Saanen, Switzerland, and completed it in Budapest; the work is dedicated to the Kolitsch Quartet, who gave the premier performance in New York in 1941. In this four-movement quartet, Bartók abandoned the arch form and approached the problem of unification yet another way: he established a unique theme or ritornello, Mesta, as the preface to the first movement and gradually integrated it into the content of the succeeding movements, making it the sole thematic content of the last movement. The Mesto theme is presented first by the viola: after a brief unison introduction by the quartet members, the Vivace section of the first movement begins. This sonata-allegro movement appears to draw only fragmental motives from the Mesto theme until quite late, when more extensive use is made of the fragments.

The second movement proper is preceded by the Mesto theme in the 'cello harmonized by the upper instruments. A fragment of the theme becomes the opening idea of the Marcia, the main body of the movement which is cast in the dotted rhythms Bartók had used the previous year in his Contrasts.

The third movement is preceded by a double statement of the Mesto theme, one in the first violin, the other in the viola, against a contrapuntal accompaniment in the remaining voices. The main body of the movement is the Burletta, Moderato, a distinctive composition full of sardonic tricks and jokes. Is this in fact a "burlesque" on some of Bartók's musical idols, even on his own music? Shortly after the movement begins, a "mistuned" quarter-time passage reminds us of the Fifth Quartet's Allegretto, con indifferenza, in the Finale, and harkens back to the out-of-tune violin in Mozart's Musical Joke (Halsey Stevens make this connection, too, in his biography of Bartók). Some measures later there appear to be Stravinskian rhythms from The Rite of Spring and L'histoire du Soldat, followed by the enigmatic theme of Liszt's Les Préludes (and Franck's D-minor Symphony), an unmistakable reference to the famous chord that opens Wagner's Prelude to Tristan and Isolde, and the hammering four-note motto of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The humor of the movement nonetheless seems wry and far from cheerful.

The final movement is both a release and a wonder. It is the Mesto theme presented in a language of deep sensitivity, perhaps resignation, perhaps numbed grief. It becomes very tempting to read autobiographical data into this musical statement, but in looking for musical reasons for the music's effect, one finds Bartók's absolute control of the theme within its chromatic environment and his adaptation to the harmonic richness linked with powerful phrasing in a manner quite unparalleled in the other quartets. The muted chords concluding the work still avoid direct tonality, in spite of the tranquility of the moment.

Bartók's Sixth String Quartet
The Juilliard String Quartet (Robert Mann - Isidore Cohen - Raphael Hillyer - Claus Adam)

Judith Eckelmeyer © 1981

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