Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta
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''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'', Sz. 106, BB 114 is one of the best-known compositions by the Hungarian composer
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
. Commissioned by Paul Sacher to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the chamber orchestra '' Basler Kammerorchester'', the score is dated 7 September 1936. The work was premiered in
Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, on January 21, 1937 by the chamber orchestra conducted by Sacher, and was published the same year by Universal Edition.


Analysis

As its title indicates, the piece is written for
string instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...
s (
violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
s,
viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...
s,
cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
s,
double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
es, and
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...
),
percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...
s ( xylophone, snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam,
bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...
, and
timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
) and celesta. The ensemble also includes a
piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
, which, due to the hammer mechanisms inside, can also be considered a percussion instrument; the celesta player joins the pianist in some four-hands passages. Bartók divides the strings into two ensembles which, he directs, should be placed antiphonally on opposite sides of the stage, and he makes use of antiphonal effects particularly in the second and fourth movements. The piece is in four movements: the first and third slow; the second and fourth quick. All the movements are written without a
key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the cl ...
: The first movement is a slow
fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...
with a constantly changing
time signature A time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, and measure signature) is an indication in music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type fit into each measure ( bar). The time signature indicates th ...
. The movement is based around the note A, on which it begins and ends. It begins with muted strings, and as more voices enter, the texture thickens and the music becomes louder, coming to a climax on E, a tritone away from A. Mutes are then removed, and the music becomes gradually quieter over gentle celesta
arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...
s. The movement ends with the second phrase of the fugue subject played softly over its inversion. The first movement can be seen as a basis for material in the later movements; the fugue subject recurs in different guises throughout the piece. The second movement is quick, with a theme in time which is transformed into time towards the end. It is marked with a loud syncopated piano and percussion accents in a whirling dance, evolving in an extended pizzicato section, with a piano concerto-like conclusion. The third movement is slow, an example of what is often called Bartók's "night music". It features timpani
glissandi In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a wikt:glide, glide from one pitch (music), pitch to another (). It is an Italianized Musical terminology, musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In ...
, an unusual technique at the time of the work's composition, as well as a prominent xylophone part. The rhythm of the xylophone solo that opens the third movement is a "written-out accelerando/ ritardando" that follows the Fibonacci sequence, the notated rhythm representing 1:1:2:3:5:8:5:3:2:1:1 notes per beat in sequence. The fourth and final movement, which begins with notes on the timpani and strummed pizzicato chords on the strings, has the character of a lively folk dance.


Popular culture

The popularity of ''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'' is demonstrated by the use of themes from this work in films and popular music. The second movement accompanies "Craig's Dance of Despair and Disillusionment" in the film '' Being John Malkovich''. The Adagio was used as the theme music for '' The Vampira Show'' (1954–55). The movement was also featured in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...
film ''The Solar System'' (1977) and Stanley Kubrick's film '' The Shining'' (1980). Jerry Goldsmith wrote in the style of this piece for the 1962 film '' Freud: The Secret Passion''. It also was the soundtrack for the 1978 Australian film '' Money Movers''. Anthony "Ant" Davis of the
hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
group
Atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...
samples the piece on the song "Aspiring Sociopath". The first movement is used in Joanna Hogg's 2022 film '' The Eternal Daughter''. The architect Steven Holl used the overlapping ''strettos'' in this piece as a model for the form of the Stretto House (1989) in Dallas, Texas. The novel '' City of Night'' (1962) by John Rechy makes reference to ''Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta'', a work that haunts the main character. The piece is also mentioned in
John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. After leaving Oxford Uni ...
's novel '' The Collector''; one of the main characters, Miranda Grey, calls it "The loveliest." Much of the music from this collection, along with '' The Miraculous Mandarin'', can be heard as underscore for two ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'' stories: 1967's " The Enemy of the World" and 1968's " The Web of Fear".


Discography

The first recording of the work was made in 1949 by the Los Angeles Chamber Symphony under Harold Byrns. Other recordings include: * Herbert von Karajan and the
Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...
(1949 – the second recording of the work) * Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Symphony Orchestra (1954) * Sir Adrian Boult and the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra (~1955) * Fritz Reiner and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...
(1958) * Leopold Stokowski and the Leopold Stokowski Orchestra (1959) * and the Hungarian Radio Orchestra (1961) *
Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...
and the New York Philharmonic (1961) * Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (1961) * Antal Doráti and the London Symphony Orchestra * Yevgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra (1965 & 1967 ) *
Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1967) * Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (1970) * Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (1973) * Antal Doráti and the Philharmonia Hungarica (1974) * Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic * Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra (1979) * Moshe Atzmon and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (1981) * Charles Dutoit and the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra The Montreal Symphony Orchestra () is a Canadian symphony orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The orchestra’s home is the Montreal Symphony House at Place des Arts. History Several orchestras were precursor ensembles to the curren ...
(1987) * Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra (1987) * Georg Solti and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...
(1989–90) *
Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...
and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...
(1994) * Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta (1996) * Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1997) *
Zoltán Kocsis Zoltán Kocsis (; 30 May 1952 – 6 November 2016) was a Hungarian pianist, conducting, conductor and composer. Biography Studies Born in Budapest, he began his musical studies at the age of five and continued them at the Béla Bartók Conser ...
and the Hungarian National Philharmonic (2010) * Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2012) * Paavo Järvi and the NHK Symphony Orchestra (2020) * Susanna Mälkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (2021)


References


External links

*
Chapter 7
of Larry Solomon's ''Symmetry as a Compositional Determinant'' (an analysis of some formal aspects of the piece) {{authority control Orchestral compositions by Béla Bartók 1936 compositions Compositions for string orchestra Percussion music Music commissioned by Paul Sacher Horror television theme songs