Night Music (Bartók)
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Night music is a musical style of 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 ...
which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...
compositions in his mature period. It is characterized by "eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies".Schneider, p. 84.


Characteristics

As with many musical styles, it is not possible to make a satisfying let alone indisputable definition of Night music. Bartók did not say or explain much about this style, but he approved of the term and used it himself. Most of the works in Night music style do not carry a title. From an audience point of view "'Night Music' consists of those works or passages which convey to the listener the sounds of nature at night". This is quite subjective and self-referential. Mostly, subjective and far-fetched descriptions are available: "quiet, blurred cluster chords and imitations of the twittering of birds and croaking of nocturnal creatures", "In an atmosphere of hushed expectancy, a tapestry is woven of the tiny sounds of nocturnal animals and insects." More concrete is "Eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies". Instead of an attempt at defining, a list of characteristics of "Night music" is more useful. # Sound portrayal as opposed to traditional melody and harmony. An example of Bartók's focus on sound quality are the minute directions on how the
percussion instruments 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. Ex ...
in the
Sonata for two pianos and percussion The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Sc ...
have to be played. This sound portrayal includes: ## The direct imitations of natural sounds, mostly of nocturnal animals. Also the term ''nature music'' is sometimes used.
Milan Kundera Milan Kundera ( ; ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship ...
, in commenting on Bartók's expansion of art music with natural sounds, writes "sounds of nature inspire Bartók to melodic motives of a rare strangeness". ## Evocations of the mood of night and spaciousness. ## Melodies are ''portrayed'' in the music, rather than being a direct means of (self-)expression. For instance, a pastoral flute and its melody are portrayed in ''The Night's Music'' from ''
Out of Doors Out or OUT may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander * ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese ...
''. The effect on the listener is not primarily the esthetic effect of the melody. The melody's effect is rather indirect: the evocation of being out of doors at night in the plain and hearing the
shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...
play his melody. In the words of
Milan Kundera Milan Kundera ( ; ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship ...
, not only the natural sounds at night, but also the lonely songs and melodies, far from being a
Lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...
or other self-expression of the composer, find their origin in the external world. In the words of Schneider "Bartók seems to be suggesting musically the old Romantic organicist idea that peasant nd shepherds'music is a natural phenomenon, a view he expressed in writing on several occasions". He also points out that "the G's n bar 37, which start as the mere sound of repeated notes and turn into the shepherd's melodygradually emerge from the myriad of other natural sounds". # On a more technical musical level, a piece or movement of night music style may show any of the following characteristics. ## An
ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from the Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces inc ...
sound on every beat in the slow prevailing tempo, often this sound is
dissonant In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unple ...
, and/or a cluster chord. Because of the slow and repetitive nature, these sounds come to fulfill an accompanying or background role. ## Curt motives at irregular time intervals within the meter. These motives may be the imitations of the natural sounds or more abstract, often primitive, motives. An example is A–A–A–C–A–A in the second movement of the
Sonata for two pianos and percussion The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Sc ...
. This motive is scored as a
quintuplet A multiple birth is the culmination of a 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 births ...
of sixteenths in time on the third beat, plus a sixteenth note on the fourth beat: the last A. As the implied or latent rhythm is 3+2+1, it sounds as an accelerando which evaporates suddenly. ## Wide pitch ranges in
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 ...
, jumps and doublings over many octaves. This contrasts heavily with cluster chords of adjacent notes and trills and may well add to the evocation of spaciousness or loneliness. ## Overlap and insertions of widely different materials, e.g. a bird call in a melodic line. Different materials sound irrespective of one another leading to novel sound effects, and, more subjectively, multiple layers and perhaps the feeling of spaciousness.


Compositions in Night music style

Night music developed stepwise and has unclear boundaries. Yet, a list of pieces of Night music can be established including its precursors. In some cases one could argue that only specific sections within a piece or movement are Night music. Danchenka's list (1987) of some works specifies in many entries exactly which bars are Night music. For instance, only the middle section of the Adagio religioso of the Piano Concerto No. 3 is included. However, Gillies (1993) points out how the main melodic material of the opening and closing sections are related to the bird calls of the middle section. As the bird calls could not be modified to match other melodic material, the opening and closing sections had to be directly derived from the bird calls. * ''Second Suite'' for small orchestra Op. 4, Sz. 34, BB 40, mvt. 3, ''Andante'' 1905 * ''Fourteen Bagatelles'' Op. 6, No.12. 1908 * Fragments of sections and moods in the opera
Duke Bluebeard's Castle ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' (, literally ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act Symbolist opera by composer Béla Bartók to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Based on the French folk legend, or ''conte populai ...
1911(−1917) * '' Five Songs, Op. 15'': No. 5, ''Here down in the valley'' () 6 February 1916 * ''
The Miraculous Mandarin ''The Miraculous 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 1916 story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered on 27 November 1926 conducted by Eugen Szenka ...
'', Op. 19. 1918–1924: The section where, in the dark, the mandarin's body glows with an eerie blue-green light. * ''
Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs ''Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs'', Op. 20, Sz. 74, BB 83, also known as ''Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs'' or simply as ''Improvisations'', is a composition for solo piano by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It was fini ...
'', Op. 20, No. 3. 1920 * Dance Suite, mvt. 4, 1923 (and, incidentally,
Slovak Dance ''Slovakian Dance'' is a piece for solo piano by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It was presumably composed in 1923, but it was not published until 1999. Composition This scherzo-style composition was meant to be placed between the second and ...
) * ''Lullaby'' from ''Village Scenes'' (''Falún'') (mvt. 4 of voice version, 1924, mvt. 2 of chamber choir version, May 1926) * ''The Night's Music'' of the five piano pieces ''
Out of Doors Out or OUT may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander * ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese ...
'', ''Lento – (un poco) pìu Andante'' 1926 * Piano Concerto No. 1, mvt. 2, ''Andante'' 1926 * String Quartet No. 3, mvt. 1, ''Moderato'' 1927 * String Quartet No. 4, mvt. 3, ''Non troppo lento'' 1928 * Piano Concerto No. 2, mvt. 2, ''Adagio – Più adagio – Presto – Tempo I'', 1931 * String Quartet No. 5, mvt. 2 ''Adagio molto'' and 4 ''Andante'' 1934 *
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta ''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'', Sz. 106, BB 114 is one of the best-known compositions by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Commissioned by Paul Sacher to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the chamber orchestra '' Basler Kam ...
, mvt. 3, ''Adagio'' 1936 *
Sonata for two pianos and percussion The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Sc ...
, mvt. 2, ''Lento, ma non troppo'' 1937 * Mikrokosmos, No. 107 ''Melody in the Mist- tranquillo'', and No. 144, ''Minor seconds, Major Sevenths – Lento'', published 1940. *
Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók) The Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement orchestral work composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular, and most accessible works. The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943". It w ...
, Introduction of mvt. 1 and mvt. 3, "Elegia", 1943 * Piano Concerto No. 3, mvt. 2, ''Adagio religioso'', 1945 * Sketches for a
Viola Concerto A viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments such as an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Throughout music history, especially during the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras, viola was viewed mo ...
, mvt. 2, ''Adagio religioso'', 1945


Development of Night music in Bartók's output

As a
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
composer, Bartók did not compose ''music as the esthetic expression of human ethics'', and as a reserved personality he shunned sentimentality, specifically breaking with 19th-century
Romantic music Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of the 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism—the ...
. While he largely based his music in faster tempo on the vitality of folk music, folk music did not provide him with many suitable idioms for slow movements (an exception is e.g. the "sirató" (elegy) middle section of the Piano Sonata (1926)). The development of Night music was influenced by sound effect compositions by
Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...
and
Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
as well as pre-Bachian composers like
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 ...
. Schneider shows the influence of the Hungarian style of musical depictions of nature, night and the vast open space by the Hungarian composers Erkel, Mosonyi, Szendy, Weiner, and Dohnányi. Close family of Bartók agree that inspiration for Night music came from summer nights at Szőllőspuszta, where Bartók visited his sister from 1921 onwards. This estate lies in
Békés county Békés (, , ) is an administrative division (county or ''vármegye'') in south-eastern Hungary, on the border with Romania. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Csongrád-Csanád, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, and Hajdú-Bihar. The capital ...
in the
Great Hungarian Plain The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain (however, the Great Hungarian Plain was not par ...
, . The Song op. 15, No. 5 ''Here down in the valley'' is a song in the
Lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...
tradition. Consequently, nature is not objectively portrayed as it is in Night music but nature mirrors the emotions of the subject. Nonetheless, it contains a night music characteristic: arpeggiated clusters of three adjacent notes in the medium and lower registers on the piano, played forte. The text is not particularly strong, but greater forces than artistic value (let alone reason) formed the inspiration: Bartók was madly in love with the poetess.
INTERMEZZO The genesis of ''Here down in the Valley'' Starting in the summer of 1915, Bartók (by that time 34 years old) undertook collection trips of Slovakian folk music in the country while staying in the mansion of Gombossy, the chief forester of the
comitatus Comitatus may refer to: *Comitatus (warband), a Germanic warband who follow a leader * ''Comitatus'', the office of a Roman or Frankish comes, translated as count. * ''Comitatus'', translated as county, a territory such as governed by medieval cou ...
Zólyom, near the town of Kisgaram (now
Hronec Hronec (, , until 1886: ) is a village and municipality in Brezno District, in the Banská Bystrica Region of central Slovakia. History In historical records, the village was first mentioned as ''Hronecz'' in 1357, when it was the dominion of Ly ...
in central
Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
). The forester had a fourteen-year-old daughter, Klára, whom Denijs Dille later described as of lively intelligence and openness of character and at fourteen coquettish, strong-willed and mischievous. She went along on Bartók's trips and although she played piano, we can assume that her stimulating support soon extended beyond the musical level. She was not only musically but also literary inclined and showed the composer a number of her poems, all in a late Romantic style: pathetic, egocentric, sentimental, hysteric. In short, entirely alien to Bartók's modernism. Nonetheless, Bartók was quite impressed. In a single day, on 6 February 1916, he wrote the music to one of them, "Here down in the valley". Given the text, the traditional Lied was a better idiom than a fully modernist song. Bartók is said to have been ready to leave his wife and his five-year-old son to marry Klára. She refused, even her friend Wanda Gleiman, author of one song in Op. 15, could not convince her. By October 1916 he ended his correspondence with Klára. Much later Bartók admitted the texts of his songs Op. 15 are "not particularly good"; Klára's spell had worn off. He wanted to publish them but only if his publisher would not mention the authors of the texts. As his publisher was afraid of copyright breach, it was left unpublished until 1958. In the first editions Bartók himself and the accomplished hungarian poet
Ady Endre Endre Ady (Hungarian: ''diósadi Ady András Endre,'' archaic English: Andrew Ady; 22 November 1877 – 27 January 1919) was a turn-of-the-century Hungarian poet and journalist. Regarded by many as the greatest Hungarian poet of the 20th centur ...
were suggested as the hidden text writer. Denijs Dille discovered the true authorship from interviews with both girls in the late 1970s, shortly before their deaths.
The first composition in fully developed Night music style, "the locus classicus of a uniquely Bartókian contribution to the language of musical modernism", is the fourth piece of the
Out of Doors Out or OUT may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander * ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese ...
set for solo piano, the instrument he knew best (June 1926). This piece is called ''The Night's Music'' and bestowed its name on the entire style. Despite its immediate success, Bartók realised the piano is ill-suited for compositions of overlapping, widely differing musical textures. Therefore, he employed ensembles and
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...
s for his further compositions in mature Night music style: slow movements of, among others, concerti and string quartets. Bartók wrote only two more solo piano pieces of night music type: Mikrokosmos No. 107 ''Melody in the Mist'' and No. 144, ''Minor seconds, major sevenths''. ''Melody in the Mist'' is technically really quite easyLevel 5 of 15, within "beginner" range in Yeomans (1988).) but shows a number of characteristics of Night music. There is an overlapping alteration of ''"Mist"'': a
block chord A block chord is a chord or voicing built directly below the melody either on the strong beats or to create a four-part harmonized melody line in " locked-hands" rhythmic unison with the melody, as opposed to broken chords. This latter style, ...
of G-A-C-D around
middle C C or Do is the first note of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63  Hz. The actual frequency has d ...
, going up and down in
semitones A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between t ...
; and an unaccompanied ''"lonely" "Melody"'' from "the external world": a mostly pentatonic (Hungarian ''Old style''(!)) melody with pitch inventory G-A-C-D-F (F once changed to
leading tone In music theory, a leading tone (also called subsemitone or leading note in the UK) is a musical note, note or pitch (music), pitch which resolution (music), resolves or "leads" to a note one semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper lea ...
F), unaccompanied and sometimes doubled at a distance of one or two octaves. At the end the
block chord A block chord is a chord or voicing built directly below the melody either on the strong beats or to create a four-part harmonized melody line in " locked-hands" rhythmic unison with the melody, as opposed to broken chords. This latter style, ...
of G-A-C-D and that very chord but a semitone up (G-A-C-D) sound simultaneously. One of Bartók's most performed pieces is his Concerto for Orchestra. The opening bars present a theme of rising fourths in cellos and basses, answered by tremolando strings and fluttering flutes in Bartók's characteristic "Night music" style. Trumpets, pianissimo, chant a pungent, short-phrased chorale Bartók described the keystone third movement, "Elegia", as a "lugubrious death-song", in which unsettled "night music" effects alternate with intense, prayerful supplications (again related to the chorale-like material that pervades the first half of the work). Bartók's last composition which contains Night music style is the slow movement of his third piano concerto, written in August and September 1945. He wrote it when mortally ill, he died 26 September. The movement opens and closes in an almost Romantic style, the middle section contains sounds of nature. Kundera wrote: ''The hypersensitive theme, unspeakably melancholic, is contrasted with the other, hyperobjective theme  .. as if a soul in tears can only find solace in the non-sensitivity of nature.'' The natural sounds are still mysterious and full of anticipation, but not at all eerie. They are rather peaceful, perhaps ''light'', as if in his last night music, a bright new morning is ready to break.


Notes


Sources

* Brown, M. J. E. (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (ed. Sadie), London, MacMillan, 1980 (1995), Vol. 13, , . * Danchenka, Gary. "Diatonic Pitch-Class Sets in Bartók's Night Music". Indiana Theory Review 8, no. 1 (Spring, 1987): 15–55. * Fosler-Lussier, D. (2007) Music Divided: Bartók's Legacy in Cold War Culture. (California Studies in 20th-Century Music) . * Gillies, M. editor (1993) The Bartók Companion. . * Harley, M. A. (1995) "Natura naturans, natura naturata" and Bartók's Nature Music Idiom, Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 36, Fasc. 3/4, Proceedings of the International Bartók Colloquium, Szombathely, July 3–5, 1995, Part I (1995), pp. 329–349, . * Kundera, Milan (1993) Les Testaments trahis, Editions Flammarion (24 septembre 1993), , . * Schneider, D. (2006) Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition: Case Studies in the Intersection of Modernity and Nationality (California Studies in 20th-Century Music) . * Yeomans, D. (1988) Bartók for piano. (Subtitle: A survey of his solo literature.)


Further reading

* Bayley, A., editor (Cambridge University Press March 26, 2001) '' The Cambridge companion to Bartók''. . * * Nissman, B. (2002) Bartók and the Piano a Performer's View. . * Stevens, H. (1953) The Life and Music of Béla Bartók. . * Somfai, L. (1996) Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Ernest Bloch Lectures in Music) . {{DEFAULTSORT:Night music (Bartok) Night music Modernist compositions Theme music Bartok Béla Bartók