1. Chapter 21: Alternatives to Modernism
Béla Bartók

2. Key Terms Neoclassicism Nationalism Folk music Sonata form
Totalitarianism

3. Music and Totalitarianism
Nazi Germany & Stalin’s Soviet Union
Composers had to be ideologically correct
Art must speak to “das Volk” or the proletariat
Bourgeois modernism was rejected & banned
Hitler promoted Beethoven & Wagner
Jazz, Jewish, & modernist music forbidden
Schoenberg, Weill, & Bartók fled
Stalin knew what he liked when he heard it
Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov spoke to people
Shostakovich & Prokofiev often censured

4. Béla Bartók The outstanding 20th century nationalist
Influenced by Liszt, Strauss, & Debussy
Comprehensive integration of folk music into melody, harmony, tonality, & rhythm
Gave his music a unique, earthy sound
Some earlier works strongly modernist
Allegro barbaro, String Quartet No. 4
Later works became more accessible
Used Classical forms & Romantic references
Concerto for Orchestra , 3 piano concertos, String Quartet No. 6, Violin Concerto No. 2

5. Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Trained as musician from early age
Wide-ranging career
Prolific composer & fine pianist
An educational innovator with Kodály
Mikrokosmos series for piano students
Investigation of Hungarian (& other) folk music
Huge number of ethnomusicological studies
Many folk-song & folk-dance arrangements
Strongly opposed to the Nazis
Fled to U.S. in 1940 as situation deteriorated

6. Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
A kind of informal symphony
For 2 string orchestras, piano, harp, celesta, timpani, & other percussion
Some features of Classical symphony
4 movements, a sonata-form fast movement, & a rondo-like finale
But many unique features as well
Slow-fast-slow-fast movement plan, folk influences, novel two-orchestra dialogue, percussive use of strings & piano, & special coloration of percussion & celesta

7. Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, II (1)
Fast tempo sonata-form movement
Exposition, development, recapitulation, coda
Multiple themes in second group

8. Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, II (2)
Music bubbles over with great variety
A rush of melodic tags, vital rhythms, folk-dance fragments, & novel percussion sounds
As in Beethoven, themes built from motives
Imitative polyphony & a fugue in development
Timpani plays a powerful role throughout
Rhythms often show Stravinsky’s influence