# Schiff on Bartók



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Some interesting thoughts on Bartók from András Schiff:






- Bartók was an uncompromising artist - not a pragmatist, like Stravinsky.






- The second Piano Concerto is the hardest piano piece
- Not many of the great composers were atheists

I don't necessarily agree with Schiff on everything, but he is an intelligent man and I find his thoughts on composers like Bach and Bartok interesting.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

tdc said:


> e
> - None of the great composers were atheists


Technically, he said not many of the great composers were atheists.

But I appreciate hearing from someone that passionate about the composer. He spurred me to listen to the concertos tonight, which for some reason I haven't paid much attention to.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Manxfeeder said:


> I appreciate hearing from someone that passionate about the composer. He spurred me to listen to the concertos tonight, which for some reason I haven't paid much attention to.


That's great, they are three unique works at a very high level of artistry and craftsmanship, challenging to perform and to some listeners fairly challenging (I took to the first two right away myself). The third I think is the more conservative of the three, its really grown on me and I find it a beautiful, and touching work.



Manxfeeder said:


> Technically, he said not many of the great composers were atheists.


Thanks for pointing out my error, I edited the OP.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

I find Schiff insufferable.

He sure can play though...


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Thanks for posting this. I have similar feelings towards Bartók that Schiff has, without his rights so to feel, though....

I'd be interested to know if this interview was recorded before the recent death of another of the giant post-Bartok Hungarian pianists, Zoltan Kocsis. The two of them have had issues, Schiff will not return to Hungary while the current toxic atmosphere pervades there, while Kocsis was happy to stay and accommodate. Were his comments about Bartók's leaving his homeland pointed or overtly personal here?

I'd question whether Bartók had "found God" at the end, which I think Schiff is suggesting. Pedantic point, but although the "religioso" marking reappears for the Viola Concerto, wasn't that Tibor Serly's contribution?

And is the Second Piano Concerto no easier than the First? I'll be honest and say it was the first "difficult" piece I ever got first time, and it's intense beauty and joy of life has never left me. I reckon Bartok got it right!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Schiff's exact quote was this: "I don't know many great composers who have been atheists." It was a personal statement and he wasn't stating it as fact, though it appears that most composers were in fact not. Schiff is suggesting that Bartok may have changed toward the end of his life and developed something like religious feelings-there certainly seems to be something otherworldly, tender and hymn-like in the shimmering slow movement of the 3rd Concerto mixed in with some clashing discords)-but that doesn't always translate into a traditional view of religion such as believing a lot of religious dogma. (Brahms had similar feelings with regard to his German Requiem.) I agree that there was something uncompromising about Bartok throughout his life. Sometimes his music can come across as austere or astringent and sound rather forbidding, not always his fault but the way he is sometimes interpreted and performed, a good example being his great string quartets. I thought these were two good interviews and I'm glad tdc shared them.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Sometimes his music can come across as austere or astringent and sound rather forbidding, not always his fault but the way he is sometimes interpreted and performed, a good example being his great string quartets. I thought these were two good interviews and I'm glad tdc shared them.


I can half remember an anecdote - I'm not sure where from - of Bartok coaching a performer (or performers) and wanting them to back down a little from their aggressive take on his music. He suggested that they make it a little less "Bartokian" or something like that.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I've alway$ thought that Bartok in the third concerto and Concerto for Orche$tra wa$n't at all uncompromi$ing. The oppo$ite in fact, he wrote tuneful reactionary con$oling romantic mu$ic to attract american bum$ on $eat$. $$$$$$$$$$$$


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I've alway$ thought that Bartok in the third concerto and Concerto for Orche$tra wa$n't at all uncompromi$ing. The oppo$ite in fact, he wrote tuneful reactionary con$oling romantic mu$ic to attract american bum$ on $eat$. $$$$$$$$$$$$


If so, $hould we care? It's great music that expanded his range in new directions. The world i$ richer for it.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

At the time the concerto was written, distrust among American modernists of accessibility--the kind of distrust that causes us to think of accessibility as "reactionary" and "compromising"--was almost at its height. As a faculty member of the Columbia music department, Bartok got to see this firsthand every day. It's an ideology that Bartok himself never bowed to, not even after he saw how much more eminent it would have made him in American academia, so in that sense the concerto's accessibility might be one of the most uncompromising works he ever wrote.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> It's an ideology that Bartok himself never bowed to,


Not even in the piano etudes? Or Qt. 4 and 5?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

None of those works could really be described as bowing to the modernists, surely? Respectful nods, maybe, but no hint of kowtowing. His Studies (I am assuming Op.18 here) are aimed at developing a pianists technique, and if they hint at Schoenberg, it was no more, and not a route he followed up on.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Robert Pickett said:


> None of those works could really be described as bowing to the modernists, surely? Respectful nods, maybe, but no hint of kowtowing. His Studies (I am assuming Op.18 here) are aimed at developing a pianists technique, and if they hint at Schoenberg, it was no more, and not a route he followed up on.


I don't know, I'm really inept at hearing these things. In fact I left off the piece which to me sounds possibly the most modernist -- the (outer movements of the) second quartet -- but I'm not good at making these judgements as I said.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

I would call the Fourth and Fifth String Quartets (along with the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta) the epitome of Bartok's engagement with modernism. As I've gushed about before, Bartok is practically alone among modernists in happily experimenting with artificial tonal languages, intricacies of form and structure, etc., while never giving up on tonality and consequently on accessibility. He refused to polarize the two, and if a work neglected its communicative duty to listeners, this invalidated whatever value its clever formal features might have had.

Both quartets have impeccable modernist credentials. Symmetry is the governing principle at every level of both works' structures: melodies are often juxtaposed with their own inversions, harmonies are chosen for their symmetrical properties, symmetry in the layout of movements , and so on. The first movement of the Fifth Quartet is a modified sonata form in which the themes are recapitulated in reverse order, making for a thematic palindrome.

At the same time, Bartok never loses sight of tonality. The fact that he is using sonata form at all--a form that more than any other depends on identifiable tone centers--already puts him more in line with pre-20th century composers than with his contemporaries. The artificial tonal structures found throughout the quartets' movements are always counterbalanced with folk movements as well as his characteristic "night music" movements. The Fifth Quartet's third movement (i.e. its central movement) is modeled on Bulgarian dance, and there is an extended passage in the otherwise stringent last movement that sounds for all the world like a hurdy-gurdy cranking out a folk tune.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I've alway$ thought that Bartok in the third concerto and Concerto for Orche$tra wa$n't at all uncompromi$ing. The oppo$ite in fact, he wrote tuneful reactionary con$oling romantic mu$ic to attract american bum$ on $eat$. $$$$$$$$$$$$


I think that is really unfair. There is no question that with some other works, such as Orchestrating the Village Scenes, he was after increased revenue, and he probably intentionally didn't want to starve to death. The #rd PC, however strikes me as a very personal, heartfelt statement


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Bartok's _Piano Concerto No. 3_ was thought to have been composed as a gift to his wife and not as a commission. He received a commission to write his highly successful _Concerto for Orchestra_ at a very difficult time in his life after coming to America, and it hardly sounds like an artistic $ellout for money. It's known as one of his most highly regarded and famous works.

"This, combined with an abatement of his medical condition, allowed for a change in the composer's general disposition. The changes in the composer's emotional and financial state are considered by a few to be the primary causes for the third piano concerto's seemingly light, airy, almost neoclassical tone, especially in comparison to Bartók's earlier works."

So, the financial success of his CFO "was reputed to impact the way he composed, meaning his_ PC_3, and may have been the culmination of a trend of reduction and simplification that began ten years earlier with his _Violin Concerto No. 2 _and his other explorations in tonality."

While it may be more melodic than his other concertos, it's melodic and simplified in Bartok's style and content... According to Schiff, it's devilishly difficult.

Isn't the dedication to his wife motive enough to write a Concerto that was more simplified, hymnlike and romantic?-and it's still not without its unexpected harmonic and percussive elements. What I find distinctive about it that's rarely mentioned is it's unabashed _optimism_, hardly typical of Bartok. It's light not dark in nature, sometimes even like birds singing, and actually openly tender, even playful in the 2nd movement. It's no wonder it's highly regarded, such as by the appreciative applause at the end of Schiff's performance of this lighter and lovely work. After his terrible health problems and loss of his country, it seems like a miracle that he could write something so positive and triumphant. I would also venture to say that this was one of the culminating works of his life.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Well spoken, Sir!


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