Rhapsody No.1

Bartók’s two Rhapsodies for violin and piano are his answer to the popular Hungarian Rhapsodies written by his great compatriot Franz Liszt in the previous century. The difference is that, whereas Liszt put his rhapsodies together from Hungarian-Gypsy sources, Bartók drew on genuine Hungarian peasant material which, as he had discovered in extensive researches during the last tweny years, is the true folk song of his country. Within the form of the traditional Hungarian rhapsody – a slow (Lassu) introduction and a quicker (Friss) section – Bartók celebrates here the songs, dances and instrumental techniques he had learned from folk fiddlers of Hungary and Romania. Just why he arranged the first of the two violin Rhapsodies for cello, which is not ideally comfortable in fiddle idiom, it is difficult to say, but it was in this version that the work was first performed in Budapest in 1929.

Bartók published three works under the title of Rhapsody. The earliest, the Rhapsody Op.1, written originally for solo piano in 1904, he might well have called “Hungarian Rhapsody” since it is so clearly derives from the celebrated Hungarian Rhapsodies of Liszt. The two violin Rhapsodies written 24 years later, on the other hand, he could not possibly have described as “Hungarian” – not because they are less Hungarian, far from it, but because he would not have wanted to associate them with a Lisztian form which, he had discovered in the meantime, was based on a gypsy or urban tradition and had little or nothing to do with the true folk music of the Hungarian peasant. By then he had been collecting authentic examples of organic folk song in the countryside of Hungary and beyond for more than 20 years. Inevitably, as he had transcribed, analysed and classifiied this music, he had adopted more and more of its harmonic and rhythmic characteristics into his own musical language, which was completely transformed by the experience.

Although Bartók rarely quoted actual folk song in his instrumental and stage music, he made an exception in the case of the two violin Rhapsodies, which were designed specifically to celebrate not only the tunes and harmonies of Hungarian and Romanian folk songs and dances but also the art of the peasant fiddlers who played them. He actually insisted that Joseph Szigeti, the dedicatee of Rhapsody No.1, should listen to the recordings he made in the field when collecting the material featured in it. So why he made an arrangement for cello and piano, as well as the slightly earlier versions for violin and piano and violin and orchestra, it is difficult to understand. But, in fact, it was in the cello-and-piano version that the present Rhapsody No.1 was first performed, by Jenö Kerpely with the composer at the piano, in Budapest in 1929.

In the first of the two parts of the work – which is divided into the slow Lassú and quicker Friss sections of the traditional Hungarian rhapsody – the cello is expected to observe the same elaborately idiomatic folk-fiddle detail as the violin (though transposed, obviously, to a pitch to suit the lower range of the instrument). Rarely silent, it not only introduces the main themes, a Romanian dance tune and, in the middle, a more intimatelly expressive Hungarian song, but keeps them mosly to itself. The interst of the piano part is largely to be found in some startlingly colourful harmonies and figurations characteristic of such folk instruments as the duda and cimbalom.

The Friss section, which follows after a short break, begins with a tune remarkably similar to the Shaker song “Simple gifts” used by Copland in Appalachian Spring and his Old American Songs. Experts assure us, however, that it is a characteristic Rumanian dance from the Temes region, the source also of the next theme, which the piano is allowed to introduce, and which fluctuates playfully in tempo, involving the celist in still more folk-fiddle techniques. Two further tunes are introduced as the dance whirls on – leading eventually to either a recall of the opening theme of the Lassú and a cadenza or, according to the version chosen by the performers, a more conventionally brilliant ending.