BARTÓK'S REVISIONS TO THE INSTRUMENTATION OF ‘DUKE BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE’

Abstract

AbstractThe full score of Béla Bartók's one-act operaDuke Bluebeard's Castle(1911) reached its final form through many intermediate stages and after many years. The most comprehensive revision had been carried out in 1917 beforeBluebeardwas finally put on the programme of the Budapest Opera House. Bartók's revisions concerned not only the ending of the opera and the vocal parts but also the instrumentation. On the basis of all available primary sources, the present article examines how the instrumentation changed between 1911 and 1925, when the full score was published by Universal Edition. As a result of experiences gained during rehearsals ofThe Wooden Princein 1917, Bartók added two instruments, the celesta and the xylophone, which he had originally not used inBluebeard. However, the original score included two tenor tuba parts, which he later replaced with trumpets and trombones. In the revised score Bartók applied new instrumental techniques, corrected an unplayable passage, made the orchestral material thinner in favour of the vocal parts, and altered the instrumentation in order to emphasize motivic connections. Most of these alterations, however, do not represent a conceptual change in the opera's instrumentation but rather realize Bartók's original ideas in a more precise and more elaborate way.