Etudes, Op.18

Rubato

The three Etudes, Op.18, represent the extreme point Bartok reached in terms of harmonic innovation. Completed in 1918, they are comparable not only to Debussy’s Etudes but also to Schoenberg’s Three Pieces, Op.11, both of which works he clearly knew very well. What stopped him going further and adopting the “species of 12-note music” which he confessed he was approaching at the time was the influence of the folk music he had so thoroughly absorbed over the last dozen years or so. The opening Allegro molto, in spite of its octave displacements and the awkwardly wide intervals in the right hand, remains a close relation of the Allegro barbaro of 1911: indeed, it quotes that work at one point. The Andante sostenuto could almost have been written by a Debussy under the influence of Schoenberg and yet its melodic lines and, still more, the decorations applied to it have clear folksong derivations. In the third of the Etudes, although the rhythmical and metrical elements are as liberated as the expressionist harmonies, the improvisatory style of the piece is within the rubato-parlando Hungarian folksong tradition.