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In Reply to: RE: Bartok and jazz posted by pbarach on May 31, 2012 at 03:06:16

Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1938)

Bartóks only trio came to be composed as a result of a request by the Hungarian violinist Josef Szigeti, who had emigrated to the United States, and the "King of Swing" clarinetist Benny Goodman. After a meeting with Szigeti, who early in the summer of 1938 broached the idea to him, and then a meeting onthe Riviera with Goodman, who was on a tour in Europe, Szigeti wrote a letter formally commissioning the work. Bartók was initially not enthusiastic about the proposition, particularly the idea of writing for a jazz musician. But his meeting with Goodman and his subsequent familiarity with the work of Goodmans trio (Teddy Wilson on piano, and Gene Krupa on drums) through recordings won him over to the project and he completed the original work in little over a month. The commission had some requests. "If possible", Szigeti wrote, "the composition should consist of two independent parts (with the possibility of playing them separately - like the First Rhapsody for violin) and, of course, we hope that it will also contain brilliant clarinet and violin cadenzas." In addition, Goodman wanted a work consisting of two brief movements that could be recorded, one per side, on 12" 78 RPM phonograph records. Bartók complied with these requests and the original work entitled Rhapsody following the traditional model of the two movement Hungarian Rhapsody was premiered at Carnegie Hall on January 9, 1939 by Szigeti, Goodman and pianist Endre Petri. The work was received enthusiastically.

During his lifetime, his works were often described with such scatological epithets as "mere ordure" (piano music), or caustic but imaginative: "the singular alarmed noise of poultry being worried to death by a scotch terrier" (Fourth Quartet). In a letter dated February 8, 1939, Szigeti wrote to Bartók, "The second part had to be repeated and we also played the second part of that movement because my E string had snapped!....through Benny Goodman, the premiere aroused such a clamour in the press which could never be hoped for by a composer or artist in our milieu..." However, he did add that he did not think that an orchestral version would be needed "for the time being." (Bartók had provided versions with orchestra of both his rhapsodies for Violin and Piano).

On April 21, 1940, the work was again played at Carnegie Hall, with Szigeti and Goodman, this time, joined by Bartók himself at the piano and with the addition of a third movement (Pihenö - Relaxation) placed between the two original movements. It was renamed Contrasts and recorded a month later by Columbia Records, with Szigeti, Goodman and Bartók. This recording is still available today on compact disc.

The work is indeed a study in contrasts: the tone color of the three different instruments, the different musical idioms, the jazz and classical players, the moods and tempi.

The first movement, Verbunkos, opens with pizzicatos, according to Szigeti, inspired by the blues movement of the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Piano (SCS 1991 season). It is to Bartóks credit that he did not fill this work with the ersatz "jazz musik" that many European composers were tempted to introduce into their works. Except for this fragment at the beginning (perhaps, humorously intended), the work remains in Bartóks own musical language all the way through.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

quote by Kurt Vonnegut

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