Bela Bartok
The following material presents excepts from the book, Bela Bartok and Turn of the Century Budapest (Judit Frigyesi).
This book endeavors to give an understanding of the cultural surroundings that influenced the composer Bela Bartok, drawing distinctions between the cultures of Budapest, Vienna and Paris at the turn of the 20th century.
The author shows the prevalent attitudes and philosophies in Europe at that time through literature and poetry, as well as through music, obtaining the general “search for identity” in the context of the “disappearance of order”. Some of the literary works of the day showing a quest for a new awareness of social meaning were from such authors as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Generally, artists of this generation throughout Europe were searching for “an ideal of coherence” and “a level of cohesiveness in life that was believed to characterize primitive societies and those of the past.” They were seeking to gain identity through their culture. We encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to find ways to enrich the culture of our city.
The early 1900’s artistically saw the introduction of abstract representation in the visual arts and the near disappearance of tonality in music. “Neoclassicism in music was yet another effort to posit an ideal of order by separating art from the anxiety of modern life and turning to classicism, that is, to an order that was emphatically of the past.” Folklorism as a variant of the expressionist movement’s interest in primitivism was yet another stream of influence. In short, composers of the twentieth century not only were free to decide what would influence them but could entirely reinterpret a source, using it for a new purpose. For example, Bartok selected the folk-music sources of his Hungarian national music in such a manner that his folklorism could not be used to support the nationalism of the political establishment. Our city has its own unique culture, and we encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to explore ways to capture it artistically.
The author asserts, “Composers develop a style primarily from personal musical experiences drawn from the culture of their environment. Even artistic choices that appear similar to ones found in other cultures might be the result of an independent development determined by an immediate cultural and personal necessity. What influences artists is less some generic romantic or modern tradition than a concrete and unique cultural environment with which they are intimately familiar; it is the background against which they work.”
Hungarian and Viennese art had similar sources of inspiration, yet they had some highly divergent viewpoints. For example, Arnold Schoenberg, the leader of the serialist movement in Vienna completely rejected folklorism, believing that art-music and folk-music were incompatible. Bartok’s music, however, presented a challenge to this view.
While stylistic coherence was a focal point in Bartok’s conception of art, using Hungarian folk melodies did present some problems. Using preexistent sources, relying on something readily available rather than invention, as well as the superficial nature of folklorism was challenging to Bartok as he endeavored to create something artistically new, meaningful, and organic. We take existing folk melodies from our area, and use them to present music in a new way in our music school in Odessa, Texas.
Indeed, by the end of the 19th century and early 20th, the essential paradigm of organicist theory articulated nearly all discourse on art. The litmus test for great art became the awareness of whether a work was categorically in one group or another. “Artistic qualities could be grouped into two opposing categories: originality, nature, and growth from inside versus imitation, mechanics, and preexistent materials.” Earlier artists endeavored to ‘replicate’ nature, but this became increasingly unsatisfactory to 19th century artists as the emphasis shifted to the creator of the artwork and process of creation. The philosopher, Karl Philipp Moritz postulated that the work of art is a fully realized whole that requires nothing beyond itself. Goethe believed that artistic creativity was “the act of forming a beautiful object out of nothing, an artistic creation that is beyond human will and therefore transcendental and mystical. Art is more than the imitation of nature; it is nature.” The students in our music school in Odessa, Texas are encouraged to bring forth their art both by imitation, as well as unique creativity.
Another idea common to this era of creativity was that a successful work of art grows out of a central idea. “An artwork is born when its original idea first presents itself, and that first idea already contains the entire piece.”
Bartok’s musical creations defied the cultural underpinnings of philosophy by successfully integrating pre-existent materials from Hungarian folk-melodies as well as utilizing organicist techniques of motivic development and stark originality, thereby defying his Viennese critics and becoming an historically important contributor, not only to Hungarian art, but successful art in 20th century Western art music throughout Europe and America. We teach the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to be creative, regardless of what critics might say.
“Bartok’s music moves with ease between variant structures and symbolic meanings. It transforms the musical material expressing one character into something that expresses another or changes insignificant elements into themes or themes back into the background. A strict system controls this continuous flow of variant ideas…an underlying plan for its tonality and for melodic and rhythmic ideas. Each work was a challenge to create a framework in which the unity of the most polarized elements becomes inevitable.”
Although Bela Bartok’s music was birthed in a time and location of history that was highly turbulent prior to (and through) the first and second world wars, along with the secularist ideologies that existed at the time, he was able to create meaningful and lasting music that was highly unique. We encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to seek unique and inventive ways to create and perform music. In an era in which music had become so cerebral that composers were abandoning tonality altogether (i.e. Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern) and creating music that had little aesthetic beauty in lieu of technical and mathematical mastery, Bartok existed in an entirely different structure, synthesizing raw folk music with high integrity of craftsmanship. Bartok’s example of skillfulness and individuality, together with a desire not lose touch with common-life experiences of the common man’s music is an example worth studying.