DEFINITIVE AUTHORIZED VERSION VS. AUTHENTIC VARIANT FORMS IN BARTÓK'S MUSIC

Abstract

B?la Bart?k was a perfectionist by nature, an extremely conscientious and industrious man, who strove to achieve a Fassung letzter Hand stage for his compositions. He accomplished this in a superb way by employing an extremely detailed, precise, consistent, and inventive nota tion ?or at least that is the general impression that the musician gets when studying Bart?k's music in the commercial editions, the only ones available to date. However, even without a proper guide to the oeuvre and the existing variant editions,1 it soon appears that old and new prints under the same label with identical plate numbers might be different, that the same piece issued by a Hungarian publisher and by Universal Edition or Boosey & Hawkes is often different, that Bart?k's notational principles in early and late compositions or in various genres are consid erably different, and that listening to Bart?k's own performance of his music with the printed music in our hand is a shocking experience, to say the least. The extensive source analysis in connection with the B?la Bart?k Complete Critical Edition (in preparation) is gradually revealing the facts about Bart?k's lifelong struggle for the definitive version, the per fect edition of his work, and it reveals why there are still a great many unsettled and controversial cases, or ramifications among authorized