The Music of Bela Bartok: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music

by Elliott Antokoletz

Overview

The basic principles of progression and the means by which tonality is established in Bartók's music remain problematical to many theorists. Elliott Antokoletz here demonstrates that the remarkable continuity of style in Bartók's evolution is founded upon an all-encompassing system of pitch relations in which one can draw together the diverse pitch formations in his music under one unified set of principles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520067479
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/11/1990
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elliott Antokoletz is Professor of Musicology at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1981 he received the Béla Bartók Memorial Plaque and Diploma from the Hungarian government.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments

I The Musical Language of Bartok: Historical Backgrounds

Folk- and Art-Music Sources

Orientation toward French, Russian, and Folk-Music Sources:
Nonfunctional Bases in Pentatonic, Modal, and Whole-Tone
Constructions

Use of Symmetrical Pitch Collections by Russian, French,
and Hungarian Composers

Russian Nationalists:
Symmetrical Properties of the Dominant-Ninth Chord

Russian Nationalists, Debussy, and Stravinsky:
Symmetrical Properties of Nontraditional as Well as Traditional
(Pentatonic and Modal) Pitch Constructions

Russian Nationalists, Scriabin, and Kodaly:
Symmetrical Partitions of the Octatonic Scale

Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Germanic Influences:
Symmetrical Organization of Chromatically Related Keys

The Schoenberg School:
Symmetrical Formations as the Basis of Progression
in Free-Atonal Compositions

Berg and Webern:
Total Systematization of the Concepts of the Interval Cycle and
Inversional Symmetry in Dodecaphonic Serial Compositions

II Harmonization of Authentic Folk Tunes

III Symmetrical Transformations of the Folk Modes

IV Basic Principles of Symmetrical Pitch Construction

V Construction, Development, and Interaction of lntervallic Cells

VI Tonal Centricity Based on Axes of Symmetry
Including the Concepts of:
Symmetrical Organization around an Axis; Use of Symmetrical
Cells in Establishing Axes; Interaction of Traditional Tonal Centers
and Axes

VII Interaction of Diatonic, Octatonic, and Whole-Tone Formations

VIII Generation of the Interval Cycles

IX Conclusion

Chronological List of Cited Bartok Compositions
Works Cited
Index to Basic Terms, Definitions, and Concepts
Index to Compositions
General Index