Day 22

Hey! One video and then four PDF’s - the Practice Checklists we’ve done so far, just so you have them again.

Downloads:
4, just in case you any of these again.

Today’s Recommended Listening:

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
String Quartet #4: V. Allegro molto

(String Quartet - Violin, Violin, Viola, Cello)

Takács Quartet
[Spotify] - 5 minutes

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: Bartok is my dude. Ultimate master craftsman. Like his mentor, Zoltan Kodaly, he was interested in transcribing the Hungarian folk songs that were being lost as people emigrated to Budapest from the countryside. 

He takes those melodies as the basis of many of his compositions, and then adds incredibly complex background math. For example, he use the fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio for phrase lengths, movement lengths, and the pinnacle of entire works. He also uses scales and harmonies of his own devising (Octatonic scales, in which the scale alternates half-step - whole-step, and quartalism with it stacked Perfect Fourth harmony).

And then, every work that he wrote was just amazing. Even his beginning piano method, the Mikrokosmos (which I transcribed and published as a sight-reading volume for two cellos) is worthy of composition study. Just amazing. I could go on for days.

But at the same time, as you’ll hear in this movement, the dude knew how to headbang too!

The Takács Quartet remains my favorite active string quartet, and their first Bartok recording is singularly responsible for my love of his music. It’s also worth seeing Andras (the cellist) play at some point. Very unusual way of playing but it really works :)

What to explore next:

1. Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra
[Boulez/Cleveland, of course]
2. Bartok - Viola Concerto (arr. Cello)
[Yo-Yo Ma recording, on a piccolo cello - and that’s a rabbithole too]
3. Takacs Quartet: Beethoven op. 18 #1
[Um yeah their Beethovens are the best.]

See you tomorrow!
—Eric