Allegro barbaro

Just why Bartók chose to call it Allegro barbaro no one really knows. It is possible, however, that it was Bartók’s defiant response to a reference to “barbarian young Hungarians” in a review of a concert he gave in Paris in 1910. Certainly, although it had to wait for publication until 1918, it was written only a year after that concert in Paris and it does make a positive point of stressing the primitive aspect of what he had absorbed from his recently intensive researches into the peasant music of Eastern Europe. In its use of the piano as a percussion instrument it was also, as the composer seemed to acknowledge by delaying its first performance until 1921, well ahead of its time.

Just why Bartók chose the Allegro barbaro title - which has tended to frighten audiences rather than thrill them with anticipation - no one really knows. It could derive from Alkan’s piece of the same name (the fifth of his Twelve Etudes in all the Major Keys, Op.35) but it is more likely that it is Bartók’s defiant response to a reference to “barbarian young Hungarians” in a review of a concert he gave in Paris in 1910. Certainly, although it had to wait for publication until 1918, it was written only a year after that concert in Paris and it does make a positive point of stressing the primitive aspect of what he had absorbed from his recently intensive researches into the peasant music of Eastern Europe. In its use of the piano as a percussion instrument it was also, as the composer seemed to acknowledge by delaying its first performance until 1921, well ahead of its time.

The Allegro barbaro is, on the other hand, far more exhilarating than it is problematic in any way. Its rhythmic impulse, whatever the syncopations that contradict its metrically regular repetition of quavers in 2/4 time, is irresistible. Its harmonies, whatever the modal inflections that clash with its basic tonality, are obsessively attached to a clearly perceived F sharp minor. Its structure, however unpredictable the distribution of its five short themes, is intriguingly articulated by evenly paced outer sections offset by an episode of fluctuating tempi towards the end. Its style, though developed not only from Hungarian but also from Romanian and Slovakian sources, is a fully integrated example of Bartók’s new idiom.