Invention, Form, Narrative in Béla Bartók's Music

Abstract

In spite of his mistrust in giving public explanations about his compositions, Bartok worked with great care on what we may call the narrative of a piece - the “spirit of the work” in his phrasing (spirit in the sense of the German Geist, the meaning, the characteristic quality). His “plans were concerned with the spirit of the new work and with technical problems (for instance, formal structure involved by the spirit of the work)” (Harvard Lectures, 1943). The best source to understand the narrative of multi-movement Bartok works is a close study of the creative process, primarily the sketches and the draft. The genesis of the Violin Concerto (1937-1938) reveals that to Zoltan Szekely's request in 1936 Bartok first proposed a one-movement Konzertstuck in variation form, i.e. the second movement. In the next step a full-size sonata-form piece emerging from the Tempo di verbunkos opening theme (as Bartok identified its character) of the present first movement could also have been an alternative one-movemen...