Bartók is remembered for his folk music studies. Like a knowledgeable archaeologist of music, spurred on by never-ending curiosity about the original sources of folk music, Bartók travelled around with his “magnetophone”, an early trumpet recorder, convincing countryfolk to sing the songs of their childhood into it, so he could record them on wax rolls. Scientific classification of popular music took up much of his energy, and he breathed fresh life into an ancient style preserved only in the lowest ranks of the peasant population. Flashes of antique Byzantine modes surface, heptatonic scales and pentatonic melodies that freed him “from the tyranny of the major and minor system”, so letting him adopt a language using various ingredients: irregular rhythms, chromatic experiments bordering on dissonance, Bachian counterpoint, impressionist nuances, but also barbaric expressionism translating into exploration of the unconscious. The close weave of the various “souls” in his output, with none of them dominating the others, marks the two pieces in this evening’s program: the Hungarian Peasant Songs, Sz 100, unearthed around 1910 at Ipolyság (now in Slovakia) with the help of an obscure local archivist, appeared in a first version for piano between 1914 and 1918, and were orchestrated in 1933, as Violin Concerto No. 1; written between 1907 and 1908, it was only premièred in 1958, in Basel. Bartók had composed it for the Hungarian violinist Stefi Geyer, with whom he had had a short, tormented relation. The two movements are contrasting: a lyrical Andante sostenuto is followed by an Andante giocoso where “the true Stefi” is depicted, “joyful, spiritual and amusing”. “My time will come” Mahler prophesied a century ago. His Fifth Symphony boasts an instrumental integrity, balanced by the use of dense orchestral polyphony and dotted with citations from Lieder such as Lob des hohen Verstandes in the last movement, from the Wunderhorn collection. Composed between 1901 and 1902 (though the final version is dated 1911), it was heard for the first time in Cologne in 1904. First in line on the score is a doleful Funeral March, followed by an effervescent movement marked Stürmisch bewegt – moving stormily – a central Scherzo with all the joy of peasant music, a pained but lyrical Adagietto and a monumental Rondò-Finale which drops in a fugue with a fine touch of irony.

Luigi Di Fronzo