Composers › Béla Bartók › Programme note
Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs (1914-18)
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Four Old Laments
Scherzo
Ballade
Nine Old Dance Tunes
Bartók once divided the works of his maturity into two categories - “those in which folk tunes are used altogether or predominantly as thematic material” and “those with original themes.” While theFifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs clearly belong to the former category, their material is treated with something approaching the freedom of the Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs which were to be written two years later. Another development is that rather than present the tunes as separate little pieces Bartók chose to run some of them together: the Scherzo and Ballade are framed by a group of four laments on the one hand and a group of nine dance tunes on the other, the fifteen pieces adding up to a coherent and well proportioned structure in four movements.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Fifteen Hungarian…/w127”
Four Old Laments
Scherzo
Ballade
Nine Old Dance Tunes
The Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs were completed in 1918. While they are still in the same category as For Children and the Romanian Folk Dances, their material is treated with something approaching the freedom of the Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs which were to be written two years later. Another development is that rather than present the tunes as separate little pieces Bartók chose to run some of them together: the Scherzo and Ballade are framed by a group of four laments on the one hand and a group of nine dance tunes on the other, the fifteen pieces adding up to a coherent and well proportioned structure in four movements.
The folk-song material of the opening Rubato is presented in octaves throughout and, adventurous though Bartók’s arpeggiated harmonies are, there is no melodic distraction. In the following Andante, however, the top notes of the introductory chords form a line shapely enough to act as a counter-melody to the main theme. The third (Poco rubato) and fourth (Andante) laments are more discreetly presented.
The only alteration made to the cheerful tune of the Scherzo is a brief sostenuto, poco rubato treatment of its first four bars in a token middle section. In the Ballade, on the other hand, Bartók replaces what in its peasant context would have been mere repetitions of the melody with a series of variations, at first retaining the 7/8 rhythms of the original but departing from that in a poetic central episode before restoring the characteristic metre and melodic shape in a last Maestoso variation.
The last of the concluding group of nine short dances - many of which are related by a prominent fourth in the melodic line - is actually a succession of virtuoso bagpipe pieces each with an obsessive drone accompaniment in the left hand and a brilliantly decorated tune in the right.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs”