''Out of Doors'' is a set of five piano solo pieces,
Sz. 81, BB 89, written by
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 H ...
in 1926. ''Out of Doors'' (Hungarian: ', German: ', French: ') is among the very few instrumental compositions by Bartók with programmatic titles.
Pieces
''Out of Doors'' contains the following five pieces with approximate duration based on metronome markings:
# "With Drums and Pipes" –
Pesante
''Pesante'' () is a musical term, meaning "heavy and ponderous."
References
Musical terminology
Musical notation
{{music-theory-stub ...
. 1 min 45s
# "Barcarolla" –
Andante
Andante may refer to:
Arts
* Andante (tempo), a moderately slow musical tempo
* Andante (manga), ''Andante'' (manga), a shōjo manga by Miho Obana
* Andante (song), "Andante" (song), a song by Hitomi Yaida
* "Andante, Andante", a 1980 song by A ...
. 2 min 17 s
# "Musettes" – Moderato. 2 min 35 s
# "The Night's Music" – Lento – (Un poco) più
andante
Andante may refer to:
Arts
* Andante (tempo), a moderately slow musical tempo
* Andante (manga), ''Andante'' (manga), a shōjo manga by Miho Obana
* Andante (song), "Andante" (song), a song by Hitomi Yaida
* "Andante, Andante", a 1980 song by A ...
. 4 min 40 s
# "The Chase" – Presto. 2 min – 2 min 12 s
Period and circumstances of composition
After
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
(1914–1918), Bartók was largely prevented from continuing his folk music field research outside
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. This increased the development of his own personal style, marked by a sublimation of folk music into art music. Bartók composed ''Out of Doors'' in the 'piano year' of 1926, together with his
Piano Sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement ( Scarlatti, Liszt, Scriabin, Medtner, Berg), others with t ...
, his
First Piano Concerto, and ''Nine Little Pieces''. This particularly fruitful year followed a period of little compositional activity. The main trigger to start composing again was Bartók's attendance on 15 March 1926 of a performance of
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
's
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments The Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments was written by Igor Stravinsky in Paris in 1923–24. This work was revised in 1950.
It was composed four years after the ''Symphonies of Wind Instruments'', which he wrote upon his arrival in Paris after ...
(and ''
Le Rossignol
, description = ''conte lyrique''
, librettist =
, based_on =
, premiere_date =
, premiere_location = Palais Garnier, Paris
''The Nightingale'' (Russian: Соловей – ''Solovyei''; French: ''Le Rossignol'') ...
'' and ''
Petrushka
Petrushka ( rus, Петру́шка, p=pʲɪtˈruʂkə, a=Ru-петрушка.ogg) is a stock character of Russian folk puppetry. Italian puppeteers introduced it in the first third of the 19th century. While most core characters came from Italy ...
'') in Budapest with the composer as pianist. This piece and Bartók's compositions of 1926 are marked by the treatment of the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
as a
percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
. Bartók wrote in early 1927:
It seems to me that the inherent nature f the piano tonebecomes really expressive only by means of the present tendency to use the piano as a percussion instrument.
Another influence on the style of his piano compositions of 1926 was his study and editing of French and Italian (pre)-
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
keyboard music in the early 1920s.
[Somfai, 1993, 179, 186–187; Nissman, 145; Yeomans, 105–6.]
He wrote the work for his new wife, the pianist
Ditta Pásztory-Bartók Ditta Pásztory-Bartók (31 October 190321 November 1982) was a Hungarian pianist and the second wife of the composer Béla Bartók. She was the dedicatee of a number of his works, including '' Out of Doors'' and the Third Piano Concerto.
Biograp ...
, whom he had married in 1923 shortly after divorcing his first wife, and who had given him his second son in 1924.
Interrelation of the five pieces
Although the set is often referred to as a
suite, Bartók did not usually play the set in its entirety. He premièred the first, fourth, and fifth pieces on the Hungarian radio on 8 December 1926, and played the fourth piece separately on numerous occasions. He referred to the set in a letter to his publisher as "five fairly difficult piano pieces", i.e., not as a suite. An
arch form in the set has been proposed, with successive tonal centers of E-G-A-G-E, but different tonal centers have also been suggested, e.g., D-G-D-G-F. Nissman shows how individual pieces' motives and endings lead logically into the following piece within the set. Originally, ''Out of Doors'' was published in two volumes: one contained the first three pieces and the other the last two.
The compositional process sheds some light on the interrelation of the five pieces. Bartók's first sketches show pieces 1 and 2 as finally published. The third piece was added later, based on unused material for the third movement of the
Piano Sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement ( Scarlatti, Liszt, Scriabin, Medtner, Berg), others with t ...
. Notably, the two final pieces, 4 and 5, form one continuous piece, numbered "3" in the sketches. Bartók applied this juxtaposition of "The Night's Music" in a slow tempo with a presto section in a single piece/movement also in the second (middle) movement of his
Second Piano Concerto.
Discussion of individual pieces
"With Drums and Pipes"
This is the only piece in the set which can be traced to a specific folk song, ''Gólya, gólya, gilice'' (see illustration). Bartók called his piece in Hungarian ''Síppal, dobbal,...'', literally translated ''With a whistle, with a drum, ...'', which for Hungarians is up to this day an obvious quote from this folk song. The main motive of Bartók's piece is found in bars 9 and 10. This motive is taken from bars 5 and 6 of the folk song. The only change Bartók made was to accommodate the syncopation. The song text in literal translation:
Stork, stork, erbian for turtle dovewhat made your leg bloody?
A Turkish child cut it, a Hungarian child cured it.
With a whistle, with a drum, and with a reed violin.
Károly Viski quotes this song in reference to the shamanistic origin of the text:
If we remember that the Hungarians, like many other people, were adherents of Shamanism in a certain period of their ancient history, these remnants can easily be understood. But the Shaman, the priest of the pagan Shamanism, is not only a fortune teller . he is also a doctor and magician, who drives away illnesses and cures them not with medicines, but with magic spells and songs. And if “he wants to hide”-that is in modern parlance- if he wants to fall into trance, besides other things, he prepares himself by dancing, singing and by performing to the accompaniment of drums ceremonial exercises Traces of this can be found even to this day in Hungarian folklore; of course in children’s playful rhymes: ong quoteIn the game which goes with this little rhyme, they beat each other with great noise and rapid gesticulation.
The quotation from the folk song that Bartók used contains only the trichord on the second degree of the tonal center in the song: E, F, and G. In Bartók's piece, this motive makes the tonal center (seem) E. Yet, just like the folk song, the piece comes home to the first degree: the tonal center D appears later in the piece at the end of the legato B section (measure 64) and the repeat of the A section.
The piece is in ternary form with a coda. The opening, closing, and coda sections consist of imitations of drums and lower wind instruments—"pipes". A less percussive, legato treatment of the piano is called for in the middle section in the middle and higher register, imitating gentler wind instruments. Bartók made a sketch of an orchestration for this piece in 1931, using for the opening section
timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...
and
gran cassa ('drums') and (
double
A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another.
Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to:
Film and television
* Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character
* Th ...
)-
bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...
s and
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
s ('pipes').
"Musettes"
The title refers to the
musette
Musette may refer to:
Music
* Musette de cour, or baroque musette, a musical instrument of the bagpipe family
* Musette bechonnet, a type of French bagpipe
* Musette bressane, a type of French bagpipe
* Oboe musette, or piccolo oboe, the small ...
, a type of small
bagpipe
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...
. Bartók's was inspired by
Couperin
The Couperin family was a musical dynasty of professional composers and performers. They were the most prolific family in French musical history, active during the Baroque era (17th—18th centuries). Louis Couperin and his nephew, François Coup ...
, who wrote keyboard pieces imitating this instrument.
The piece consists mostly of imitating the sound effects of a poorly tuned pair of musettes. There is little melody. ''With drums and pipes'' and ''Tambourine'' of Bartók's ''Nine little pieces'' similarly consist of sound imitations of folk instruments.
A noteworthy instruction reads ''Due o tre volte ad libitum'' (''play optionally two or three times''), giving the performer a degree of freedom rare in classical music scores, and underlining the improvisatory and spontaneous nature of folk bagpipe music. The
Sostenuto pedal
Piano pedals are foot-operated levers at the base of a piano that change the instrument's sound in various ways. Modern pianos usually have three pedals, from left to right, the soft pedal (or una corda), the sostenuto pedal, and the sustaining ...
of the grand piano is necessary for a right rendering of the final four bars.
"The Night's Music"
This piece was immediately well received in Hungary, unlike many of Bartók's other compositions. Stevens already focuses attention to the quality and importance of this work in his early biography. It is "the locus classicus of a uniquely Bartókian contribution to the language of musical modernism".
The form is described variously in the literature, e.g., a loose rondo, ABACABA or as ternary, with the middle as 'developmental' section.
Three types of material are distinguished:
# A Imitation of the sounds at night in a Hungarian summer, tonal centre G or ambiguous tonality. A highly dissonant arpeggiated cluster chord (E,F,G,G,A) is repeated throughout the section on the beat. On top of this, six imitations of natural sounds (birds, cicadas, and the particular
Hungarian ''unka'' frog) are scored in a random fashion. This material is found in bars 1–17, 34–37, 48, and 67–71. There and small quotes in bars 25–26 and in 60, while the arpeggiated cluster chord is often inserted in the B and C material.
# B Chorale in G. This material is found in bars 17–34 and 58–66.
# C Peasant flute imitation strictly in the
Dorian mode
Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different but interrelated subjects: one of the Ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' (characteristic melodic behaviour, or the scale structure associated with it); one of the medieval musical modes; or—mos ...
on C. Bartók frequently composed contrasting sections with a tonal centre which is a
tritone
In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three a ...
apart C-G from a previous section. This material is found in bars 37–58, 61–67, and 70–71.
Notable overlap occurs in bars 61–66, where the chorale (B) and peasant flute (C) materials sound together. This is far from a traditional duet, because the characters, tempos and tonal centers of the two parts vary widely, as often in Bartók's night music.
The random scoring of nature's sounds in the A-material makes memorisation extremely difficult. But memorisation turns out to be not necessary as witnessed by the anecdote of Mária Comensoli, a piano student of Bartók. She was astonished when she first played ''The Night's Music'' by heart (as required at Bartók's lessons) and Bartók remarked
Are you playing exactly the same number of ornaments that imitate the noises of the night and at exactly the same place where I indicated them? This does not have to be taken so seriously, you can place them anywhere and play of them as many as you like.
The many precise dynamic and stress signs witness how Bartók aimed for very specific performance and sound effects. Three footnotes in the score deal with the exact execution of
arpeggios and
grace note
A grace note is a kind of music notation denoting several kinds of musical ornaments. It is usually printed smaller to indicate that it is melodically and harmonically nonessential. When occurring by itself, a single grace note indicates eith ...
figurations. The fourth footnote instructs the pianist to play the
cluster chord
may refer to:
Science and technology Astronomy
* Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft
* Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family
* Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study t ...
E, F, F, G, G, A, B, C with the palm of the hand.
"The Chase"
This piece consists of five melodic episodes. They are prefaced and separated (except for the fourth and fifth episode) by 'ritornello' type sections of repeated
cluster chord
may refer to:
Science and technology Astronomy
* Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft
* Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family
* Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study t ...
s in a clashing rhythm (
duplets in measure).
The piece is related to the pantomime ''
The Miraculous Mandarin
''The Miraculous Mandarin'' ( hu, A csodálatos mandarin, translit= ˈt͡ʃodaːlɒtoʃ}, ; german: Der wunderbare Mandarin) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918 and 1924, and based on the ...
'', in character to the chase scene and harmonically to the important two building blocks which are presented directly at the start of the pantomime:
# A three-note chord consisting of the ground note, and a tritone and a major seventh above, e.g. F, B, E.
# A scale spanning an augmented octave
The left hand plays an
ostinato arpeggiated
quintuplet
A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bir ...
chord of F, G, B, C, E, of which the E is on the beat ( measure). This figure consists of the ‘pantomime’ chord of F, B, E, to which the fourth of G, C, is added. This ostinato changes at every new episode:
# In the second episode, the C is moved an octave down, making the whole figure span a minor tenth (C, F, G, B, E).
# In the third episode, the B is moved an octave down B, F, G, C, E, calling in Bartók’s own fingering for a change of hand position in the execution of this figure (1, 5, 4, 2, 1).
# In the fourth episode, the figure is expanded to B, D, G, A, F, G, C, E (in two
quadruplets
A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bir ...
per two beats). This figure can be interpreted in different ways. Firstly, as two ‘pantomime’ chords, (F, B, E & B, F, A; or F, B, E & D, G, C) to which four or two notes are added (D, G, G, C; and G, A respectively). The chords are remarkably symmetrically distributed over the figure. Secondly, two ‘pantomime’ chords (F, B, E and G, D, G) with two added notes (A, C). Thirdly, the figure consists of two four-note figures, exactly a tritone apart. Lastly, the pitch inventory consists of two diminished seventh chords, on B and G, symmetrically divided over the figure.
# Within the fourth episode, the figure is limited to A, B, D, G for a few measures. This seems mostly a necessity for pianistic reasons, but the resulting figure is quite similar to the one bridging the fourth and fifth episodes
# Bridging the fourth and fifth episodes, for only one measure the figure changes to B, D, F, G, A. This figure is the first half of a cadence which resolves in the recapitulation of the first theme.
# In the fifth episode, the figure is the same as in the first episode, except that it is stretched to ten notes over two octaves in two beats, F, G, B, C, E, F, G, B, C, E.
The melody features the augmented octave scale.
This piece is technically difficult: "From the standpoint of technique and endurance, especially for the left hand, this
iececould easily be the most demanding in Bartók's entire output.
[Yeomans 1988, 108.]
Editions of score and recordings
Score
The Boosey & Hawkes printing is a facsimile of the original edition from Universal Edition. There is a new edition from Boosey & Hawkes by Peter Bartók and Nelson Dellamaggiore.
Notable recordings
* Bartók had planned to record the fourth piece himself, writing it would last approximately four and a half minutes. No recording is now known to exist.
*
György Sándor
György Sándor (; 21 September 1912 – 9 December 2005) was a Hungarian pianist and writer.
Early years
Sándor was born in Budapest. He studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest under Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and debuted as ...
: ''Béla Bartók: Piano Music''. LP recording, 9 discs in 3 volumes: 33⅓ rpm, stereo. Vox Box SVBX 5425–SVBX 5427. New York: Vox Records, 1961–63. Sándor was a pupil of Bartók.
*
Zoltán Kocsis
Zoltán Kocsis (; 30 May 1952 – 6 November 2016) was a Hungarian pianist, 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 Conservatory in 19 ...
: ''Béla Bartók: Works for Piano''. Sonata for Piano, BB 88; ''Out of Doors'', BB 89; ''Two Romanian Dances'', BB 56; ''Three Hungarian Folk Songs from Csík'', BB 45b; Romanian Christmas carols, BB 67; Fourteen Bagatelles, BB 50; Sonatina, BB 69. Recorded Hamburg, Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, 1991, 1993, and 1996. CD recording. 1 disc, stereo. Philips 464 676-2 PM.
ermany Philips Classics, 2001. Kocsis recorded all Bartók solo piano music, attempting to stay close to Bartók's score and Bartók's own performance. Tempos are strictly followed from the score, including the extraordinary 160 dotted quarters per minute in ''The Chase''.
*
Murray Perahia: ''Murray Perahia Plays Bartók''. Sonata; ''Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs'', Op. 20; Suite, Op. 14; ''Out of Doors''. LP recording, 1 disc: 33⅓ rpm, stereo. CBS Masterworks M 36704. New York: CBS Masterworks, 1981.
*
Barbara Nissman
Barbara Nissman (born December 31, 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist. She is especially known for her interpretations and performances of the works of Alberto Ginastera and Sergei Prokofiev which feature prominently in h ...
: ''Out of Doors''. Bartók's ''Out of Doors'', plus music by Schubert, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Hummel, Mendelssohn and Prokofiev. CD recording, 1 disc: stereo
Three Oranges Recordings 3OR-19 2014.
Notes
Sources
* Bayley, Amanda (ed.) (2001). ''The Cambridge Companion to Bartók''.
Cambridge Companions to Music
The Cambridge Companions to Music form a book series published by Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII ...
. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
*
* Bónis, Ferenc. 1995. ''Így láttuk Bartókot: ötvennégy emlékezés''. Budapest: Püski.
* Danchenka, Gary. "Diatonic Pitch-Class Sets in Bartók's Night Music" Indiana Theory Review 8, no. 1 (Spring, 1987): 15–55.
* Fosler-Lussier, Danielle. (2007). ''Music Divided: Bartók's Legacy in Cold War Culture''. California Studies in 20th-Century Music 7. Berkeley : University of California Press.
* Gillies, Malcolm (2006). "Bartók's "Fallow Years": A Reappraisal". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Volume 47, Numbers 3–4 / September 2006. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISSN 0039-3266 (Print) 1588–2888 (Online) DOI 10.1556/SMus.47.2006.3-4.7
* Nissman, Barbara. (2002). ''Bartók and the Piano: A Performer's View''. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.
* Schneider, David E. (2006). ''Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition: Case Studies in the Intersection of Modernity and Nationality''. California Studies in 20th-Century Music 5. Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Schneider, David E. (1995). "Bartók and Stravinsky: Respect, Competition, Influence and the Hungarian Reaction to Modernism in the 1920s". In ''Bartók and his world'', edited by Peter Laki, 172–202. Princeton: Princeton University Press
* Somfai, Laszlo (1993). "The 'Piano Year' of 1926". In ''The Bartók Companion'', edited by Malcolm Gillies, 173–188. London: Faber. (cloth), (pbk) American printing, Portland, Oregon: Amadeaus Press, 1994. (cloth) (pbk)
* Somfai, Laszlo (1996). ''Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources''. Ernest Bloch Lectures in Music 9. Berkeley : University of California Press.
* Stevens, Halsey. (1953). ''The Life and Music of Béla Bartók''. New York: Oxford University Press. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Third edition, prepared by Malcolm Gillies. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
*Viski, Károly (1932). ''Hungarian Peasant Customs''. Budapest: George Vajna & Co. ASIN: B002LY2XQM (No ISBN).
*Yeomans, David (1988). ''Bartók for Piano: A Survey of His Solo Literature''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Paperback reissue, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
External links
List of errata in the Boosey & Hawkes edition PIB-130* Free recording of ''Out of Doors''
Movements 1–3an
Movements 4–5by Neal O'Doan in
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format
An interactive score of Bartók’s ''The Night's Music'' from the cycle ''Out of doors'' with Sir András Schiff.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Out of Doors (Bartok)
1926 compositions
Compositions for solo piano
Compositions that use extended techniques
Modernist compositions
Suites by Béla Bartók