Bartok
by Simon King

 

 

The Habsburg monarchy covered a vast amount of territory – Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, northern Italy, Transylvania and Serbia. An artist such as Bela Bartok might in theory gravitate to more fashionable areas such as Vienna or Budapest, where he would be feted by a sycophantic intelligentsia. However, in the year 1906 Bartok felt a gravitational pull towards the less fashionable, more remote, less populated parts pf the empire.

Why was this? Bartok wrote modernist classical music, but of a highly distinctive sort. He imbued his dissonance, irregular melodies and pulsating rhythms with Hungarian folk music. He had found a lot of melodies in archives, but what he especially liked was to go on excursions to remote villages, talk to local people and collate melodies there. He usually took a phonograph with him, a cutting-edge piece of technology, and recorded local people singing melodies.

Bartok was currently residing in Bekes County, alongside his sister and her husband. They were currently renting a room in a hotel. Bartok’s brother-in-law was attending some business meetings and this happened to coincide with Bartok’s own excursions into this territory.

‘Are you off again?’ asked Erzsebet, his sister. She was fiddling with her black hair. Like Bela, she was rather attractive. She wore a multi-coloured dress. ‘That is quite heavy to carry,’ she said, pointing to the phonograph.

‘Oh, yes, it is, but I need it,’ Bartok said. He carried it with some difficulty. ‘I will now get a train into one of the remote villages.’

‘Good luck.’

Bartok carried the phonograph with him in a large wooden box. He also carried a briefcase which contained pencils and sheet paper. ‘Business papers?’ asked a man sitting directly opposite him on the train.

‘Something like that,’ Bartok said. Telling people that he was a composer seemed pretentious and attention-seeking, so he would rather let people assume that he was a businessman.

He was currently in Hungary, but he was very close to the border to Transylvania. There had been hostilities since 1867, when Hungary acquired more parliamentary power after the introduction of the ‘dual monarchy.’ Some Transylvanians were hostile, but Bartok’s affable manner cooled things off.

Bartok liked ordinary people. Whilst cities like Vienna and Budapest were in the throes of modernising, towns on the outskirts conserved their culture. He liked the sound of their songs and he liked their old practices. The Habsburg monarchy may have been falling behind Germany in terms of economic performance, but Vienna and Budapest still had developed a lot more than the ordinary villages which he was visiting.

Wasn’t modernism after all a consequence of living in the city? Weren’t the pulsating rhythms of many modern pieces an attempt to recreate the chaos, the messiness and the bustle of the city? However, couldn’t it be united with something quainter and more prosaic? Bartok certainly thought so.

The train arrived at Veszsto. Bartok took his hefty baggage and walked off the train. He walked across a narrow path, surrounded by shrubberies, which led him into the village. He walked towards the third house and knocked on the door.

A middle-aged woman opened the door. ‘Hello, Maja,’ Bartok said. ‘I have brought my phonograph over. I was hoping to make some recordings.’

‘Oh yes, Hanna is upstairs, though she is quite reticent to come down,’ Maja said.

Bartok sat down in the living room. There was a clock on the left side of the room. The wallpaper was creased and peeling off. The husband, Andor, sat opposite on the sofa. ‘I understand that Hanna’s grandmother taught Hannah some old songs from the village,’ Bartok said.

‘Oh yes… When she was little, she would teach her all of the village’s songs,’ Andor said. ‘They would sing them together back in the nineteenth century. When Hanna was little, they would spend all of their time together, singing songs.’

Maja came down the stairs. ‘Hanna is still upstairs. She is still a bit shy about coming down. Bless her.’

‘Maybe I could take my phonograph up with me,’ Bartok said.

‘Oh well… I hope she doesn’t mind,’ Maja said.

Bartok took his phonograph with him up the stairs. He knocked a few times on the door. Hannah opened the door, a rather pretty nineteen-year-old girl. She had brown hair and a white dress. ‘Yes?’

‘I have come to record the song that your grandmother used to sing to you,’ Bartok said.

Hannah smiled nervously, sat down on the bed and lolled her head on the pillow. ‘Have you come all the way from Budapest just for this?’

‘Well, not just for this… I am collecting other melodies, too.’

‘And they told you about me?’

‘They told me about you… How your grandmother used to teach you a song that she used to sing when she was young.’

Hannah lifted her head from the pillow and looked at the squalid ceiling, which had a couple of spiders roaming around it. ‘Then you really want me to sing this song.’

‘I do.’

 She sang a beautiful little melody, in a minor key.

Bartok smiled. ‘Thanks, I’ve recorded it.’

   Bartok took the phonograph down with him to the living room. ‘Thank you for your time, Maja and Andor. I recorded what I wanted.’

‘Come down to visit us again,’ Maja said.

‘Oh, I will,’ Bartok uttered, as he placed his black overcoat on. He took his cumbersome luggage with him and walked back to his hotel room.

Once he arrived at the hotel, Bartok took the phonograph out and replayed the girl singing the melody endlessly. He took out his sheet of paper and wrote down the melody. This was one of several melodies which he had collected.

Erzsebet arrived at the room. ‘Have you written down the melody?’ she asked.

Bartok jerked around. ‘Yes, do you want to hear her singing it?’

Bartok played the song on the phonograph once more. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Erzsebet said.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you use it in one of your pieces?’ she asked.

‘Well, I have collected a hundred so far… They’re usually songs which have been performed for hundreds of years… Passed down from generation to generation. They will work their way into several of my pieces.’

‘How’s the first string quartet coming along?’

‘Very well… Do you want to hear the song again?’ Bartok played the song five or six times.

Erzsebet smiled and walked out of the room.

Rate this story.

Copyright is reserved by the author. Please do not reproduce any part of this article without consent.