Which Area Was Bartók Most Interested In for the Study of Its Folk
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Bartók was interested in the study of folk music from all over the world. However, he was particularly interested in the music of his homeland, Hungary.
Hungarian Folk Music
Bartók’s research
Bartók was most interested in the folk music of Central and Eastern Europe, which he saw as a cultural wellspring of great importance. He began his research in Hungary, and later expanded his work to include the folk music of Romania, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia, and other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bartók was particularly interested in the musical traditions of rural communities, which he saw as more authentic and true to the folk spirit than the music of cities and towns. In his quest for authentic folk music, Bartók often journeyed to remote villages in order to hear the music firsthand. He would then transcribe the tunes he had heard, making note of their melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic features. Bartók’s pioneering work in ethnomusicology helped to preserve the musical traditions of many different cultures that were threatened by modernization and urbanization.
The influence of Hungarian folk music
Bartók was born in the Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós (now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania) in 1881. He studied piano and composition at the Budapest Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Hans Koessler and István Thomán, a student of Franz Liszt. In 1903 Bartók took an extended leave from the Academy to conduct ethnomusicological research in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Transylvania (now part of Romania). This work resulted in his collection of some 6,000 manuscripts—the largest such collection ever amassed by a single individual. Bartók himself made about 1,800 transcriptions from these manuscripts; many were later published as piano compositions or arrangements for various instrumental ensembles.
Romanian Folk Music
Bartók was most interested in the music of Constantin Brăiloiu, a Romanian musicologist, and he corresponded with him often. Bartók noted that the music of the Romanians contained many interesting features, such as modal scales, unusual rhythmic patterns, and melodies that were not based on major or minor scales.
Bartók’s research
Béla Bartók undertook several field trips to collect, record and notate the folk music of Hungary and other neighboring areas, including Romania. Of these regions, Bartók showed the most interest in Romanian folk music, as is evident in the number of Romanian folk songs included in his collections.
The influence of Romanian folk music
In the years around 1900, many composers were interested in writing music that was influenced by the folk music of various countries. One of these composers was Béla Bartók, who did a great deal of research on the folk music of Hungary and Romania. He even made several trips to Romania to collect folk songs.
Bartók was particularly interested in the melodies of Romanian folk music. He noticed that many of these melodies were quite different from those of Hungarian folk music. They were often much more chromatic (containing many more sharps and flats) and did not follow the major or minor key system. Bartók was also impressed by the way that Romanian folk musicians improvised on these melodies.
Many of Bartók’s compositions, such as his Hungarian Folk Songs and Romanian Folk Dances, are based on the tunes he collected on his trips to Romania. He also used some of these tunes in his larger works, such as his opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and his ballet The Miraculous Mandarin.
Slovakian Folk Music
Béla Bartók was born in Hungary in 1881, but he spent much of his adult life living in and around Slovakia. Bartók became interested in the music of the Slovak people while he was living in Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia). He was particularly interested in the music of the region known as the Spiš, which is in the northern part of the country.
Bartók’s research
Bartók’s interest in Slovakian folk music began in 1904 when he was sent there by the Hungarian Music Society to collect and transcribe songs. He continued to visit Slovakia intermittently over the next few years, making field trips to various parts of the country in order to collect as many songs as possible. In total, Bartók collected and transcribed around 400 Slovakian folk songs, which were published in a series of volumes between 1906 and 1908.
Bartók was particularly interested in the music of the eastern regions of Slovakia, where he felt the influence of Hungarian and Romanian folk music was most evident. This can be seen in his choice of songs for his first volume of Slovakian folk music, which was largely drawn from these regions. Bartók’s research into Slovakian folk music culminated in his publication of the four-volume collection “Magyar népzene” (Hungarian Folk Music) in 1909-1910.
The influence of Slovakian folk music
Bartók became interested in Slovakian folk music after hearing recordings of it in 1904. He was struck by the fact that the music sounded very different from the music of other European countries. Bartók believed that the music of each country was influenced by the music of its neighbors, but he could not find any examples of Slovakian folk music that sounded like the music of other countries. Bartók realized that the only way to learn about the influence of Slovakian folk music was to study it himself.
Bartók made several trips to Slovakia between 1904 and 1906, and he collected over 3,000 recordings of Slovakian folk music. Bartók was particularly interested in the music of the eastern region of Slovakia, which he believed was the most purely Slovakian region. Bartók also studied the folk music of other countries, such as Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. Bartók wrote several articles about his findings, and he also gave lectures on Slovakian folk music.
