Sonatina (1915)

Bartók’s delight in Romanian folk material is nowhere more evident than in the Sonatina which, by virtue of its unaffected Transylvanian tunefulness and its structural modesty, has become one of the most popular of all his works. The first movement is a simple ternary construction with a wittily coloured bagpipe tune and its drone accompaniment in the outer sections and a lively dance from Bihar in the middle. The grumbling Bear Dance is limited to just one tune passing from the right paw to the left. The comparatively extended Finale is based on two more bagpipe tunes, the second of them briefly developed in the middle of the movement, the two of them combined in the coda.