Character or idiom – Guitaristic archetypes in 20th-century nocturnal forms: transcribing Bartók’s ‘Night music’ for guitar, a case study
Katalin Koltai
Guitarist, PhD researcher,
FASS Scholarship Holder,
International Guitar Research Centre, University of Surrey, UK
To Cite this Article
Koltai, K. (2022). Character or idiom – Guitaristic archetypes in 20th-century nocturnal forms: transcribing Bartók’s ‘Night music’ for guitar, a case study. p-e-r-f-o-r-m-a-n-c-e, 6.
Introduction
Our perception of a musical instrument is bound by tradition. Historically the repertoire of the guitar has widely recognized and repeated nocturnal connotations in both Western classical music and folklore. When exploring the nocturnal theme related to the guitar, we find the tradition continued through the 20th century, where the repertoire includes hundreds of solo and ensemble pieces entitled serenade, notturno or its synonyms, amongst them one will find the most important cornerstones of the guitar canon composed by Britten, Schoenberg etc. Nevertheless, Bartók did not think of the guitar[1] when writing his ’Night’s Music’, a piano piece which created a whole new genre. Bartók’s compositional language seems idiosyncratic for a guitar transcription, using clusters and multi-layers. However, the intimate and colouristic expressivity still sounds characteristic. This creative research led to the invention of new guitar tools (capos), which enabled the transcription of the Bartók opus (and other works, not detailed here). The description of the transcribing process explores idiomatic challenges and the translation of the choreography from one medium to another.
‘If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are
Say that it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.’[2]
(Wallace Stevens, 1937)
Guitaristic archetypes in 20th century nocturnal pieces
The intimate nature of its sound, the capacity to be atmospheric, the colouristic rather than dynamic range of expression made the guitar and similar plucked instruments useful for late evening, or night musical events, and to create connotations to a nocturnal atmosphere.
In the Philippines, the suitor sings a harana[3] accompanied by a guitarist or ukulele player, in South-Italy Carpino singers play their serenata and their ninne nanne (lullaby) with a chitarra battente, in Spain and Portugal tuna[4] is accompanied by guitars and bandurrias.
Photo by J. Tewell on flickr (cc)
While in the Western classical music tradition the serenade originates back to 16th-century Italy, it becomes a well-acknowledged genre using plucked instruments in the 18th century:[5]
W.A.Mozart: Don Giovanni, Act2, Scene 3. Canzonetta
‘[I]t was the practice to perform them [serenades] at about 9 p.m.’ and Notturno ‘a similar kind of work, was usually given about 11 p.m.’ evolves to a common understanding that ‘any movement with an accompaniment on plucked strings (suggesting the lute, guitar or mandolin) carried serenade connotations.’[6]
The tradition of the aforementioned cultural connotations has not stopped in the 20th century, where many of the most important guitar works, or chamber music pieces with guitar refer to the night’s atmosphere. Manuel de Falla’s Homenaje ‘Pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy‘ quotes from ‘La sérénade interrompue’ and ‘La soirée dans Grenade’ by Debussy, Benjamin Britten composes his Nocturnal, originally entitled Night Fancy, Gubaidulina composes her Serenade, Schoenberg uses guitar and mandolin in the instrumentation of Serenade, Maurizio Kagel has guitar, ukulele, mandolin and banjo in the Serenade, the parts of the fourth movement of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, ‘Nachtmusik II’ contains guitar and mandolin, the last movement of Kurtág’s Kis csáva for flute/trombone and guitar, entitled Nachstück too. When searching on Sheerpluck.de, an extensive database of 20th and 21st-century guitar music, hundreds of pieces come up with the titles notturno, nocturnal, serenade, serenata, and other synonyms.
Obviously, there are many notturno type pieces in the 20th century without the guitar or other plucked non-orchestral instruments involved, but some of them still refer to these instruments.
Works influenced by Spanish folk music, such as Manuel de Falla’s Noches en los jardines de España, or Debussy’s ‘La soirée dans Grenade’ obviously have plenty of guitaristic allusions but others – not related to Spanish folk music – have patterns and textures of guitaristic archetypes too.
In 1963 Benjamin Britten dedicated two of his solo pieces to the night, one for the piano and one for the guitar.
‘Benjamin Britten was fascinated by the night time and Nocturnal is clearly a piece of the night. He often said night time was for sleeping, where the subconscious takes over the creative process.’[7] -says Prof. Stephen Goss when analysing the guitar piece[8].
‘Night and silence, these are two of the things I cherish most.’, says Britten in an interview.[9]
His atmospheric piano piece, the Night Piece, Notturno has a touch of Spanish impressionistic flavour, and sounds very similar to sections from Manuel de Falla’s Noches en los jardines de España where the piano and other orchestral parts often imitate the different tremolo and strumming techniques of the guitar (see extract b.117):
Manuel de Falla: Noches en los jardines de España – Extract (b.117-126)
Benjamin Britten: Night piece – extract (b.42-45)
Benjamin Britten: Night piece – Extract (b.34-35)
Béla Bartók: The Night’s Music – 1926
The Night’s Music, the 4th movement of the piano cycle Out of Doors, performed by Bartók himself on his recital at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest ‘earned the enthusiastic praise of a number of critics after the première on December 8, 1926.’[10] (József Ujfalussy, 1971)
Let’s quote the words of Aladár Tóth, one of the most significant music journalists of the time:
‘We could hear in these sounds a distant, wandering note, the cry of birds, the calm music of the stars, the transcendental melody of the majestic hymn of the night – any vision it is possible to conjure up without the aid of sounds which attempt to imitate the crickets, birds, or stars; these sounds evoke the reality of a night beyond the realm of the earth, Bartók’s own night. This is one of the most marvellous masterpieces to capture the poetry of nature in Hungary.’[11] (Aladár Tóth, 1926)
This piece became a locus classicus for scholarly discussions about a new genre labelled the ‘notturno type’ or the ‘night music’.[12]
Details about the history of the piece’s creation can be discovered in the memoires of family members, especially Bartók’s son, Péter, who recounts his father’s summertime stay with Elza (Béla Bartók’s sister) in Szőllőspuszta, and describes how his father spent many nights outdoors listening to the sound of nature and of the distant village:
‘…in the front of the house we were surrounded by silence, except for distant dogs barking, crickets or similar pretty sounds, and frogs. Do not forget the frogs[13] […] In the fourth movement […] I recognized the frogs of Szöllös in an altogether reminiscent atmosphere. There were even those occasional jumps into the water. And in the distance sounded some faint music, the man-made kind, perhaps coming from the nearby village.’[14] (Peter Bartók, 2002)
Folkloric influences in Bartók’s Night’s Music
Béla Bartók accurately detailed his impressionistic vision of the outdoor’s night atmosphere which surrounded him. This first section brings ‘antihuman chords’ (clusters)[15] to create a vision of ‘the secretive murmurs of cool, starry, demonic Night’[16] and irregular intervals are spread over a wide range imitating the noises of nature. The five-note clusters create an atmospheric background for the whole piece, and this becomes the first layer, upon which the composer builds other layers of imitated noises, a chorale melody and a peasant flute melody.
The composer who held Debussy’s œuvre in high regard, surely listened to the triptych of Ibéria composed between 1905–1908. This triptych of the three orchestral Images is formed of three movements:
- Par les rues et par les chemins
- Les parfums de la nuit
- Le matin d’un jour de fête
The three movements are impressionistic paintings with sounds of the surroundings and the distant village.
The second movement, Les parfums de la nuit, dedicated to the night, starts with a pedalled note and explores whole note tetrachords, resulting in augmented fourths. These ‘horizontal clusters’ create the atmosphere for the entire movement. It is exciting to compare with Bartók’s atmospheric semi-tone clusters in The Night’s Music.[17]
Debussy: Images: Ibéria: Les parfums de la nuit – Extract
The form establishing an atmospheric background as a first step and building the melodic content or themes onto it later has its traditions in folklore too. ‘Cante jondo’[18]– a primary source of folk inspiration for Debussy or de Falla – builds the ambience by exploring a guitar chord at the beginning of each song:
‘The guitar starts with a rubato tempo that creates the ambient and sonority to the singer; then, he/she pronounces two or three notes that are used to warm up and feel the tonality. It is usually performed crying “Ay”. After it, the singer starts the lyrics of the song.’[19]
I am not suggesting the direct influence of the Andalusian cante jondo on Bartók’s œuvre (besides the mentioned influence of French impressionist works composed one or two decades earlier), but a similar folk tradition, called the hora lungă[20] inspired the composer greatly.
‘Such was its significance that Bartók later admitted that his encounter with the hora lungă was the most important development of his musicological career.’[21]
Ligeti in his preface for the Sonata for viola also describes similarities between cante jondo, hora lungă and other types of folk music:
[…] the spirit of Romanian Folk music, which, together with Hungarian folk music and that of the Gipsies, made a strong impression on me during my childhood. However I do not write folklore or use folkloristic quotes, it is rather allusions which are made. Hora lungă literally means
‘slow dance’ but in the Romanian tradition this is not a dance but are sung folk melodies (…) nostalgic and melancholic richly ornamented. There is a striking similarity to the “Cante jondo” in Andalusia and also folk music in Rajastan. Whether this has something to do with Gipsy migration or is a common old indo-european, diatonic melodic tradition is hard to decide.’[22]
The first movement of the second violin sonata is a typical example of how hora lungă affected Bartók’s style.
When talking about the folkloric influence on his work Bartók says:
‘The most important thing for a composer is to grasp the spirit of that music, to incorporate it with his entire output, allow it to permeate his whole being and outlook’[23]
This influence takes place spiritually or poetically, rather than defining the actual compositional texture or form of The Night’s Music. The atmospheric introduction with repeated chords (varied barely by different arpeggios), the fragile loneliness of the chorale melody, the peasant flute melody accompanied rhythmically with ‘strummed’ chords, and even the density of the polyphonic climax are all characterlike for the guitar. Nevertheless, the texture is idiosyncratic.
The process of transcribing The Night’s Music for guitar, idiomatic challenges, inventing new capos
The previous explanation unfolds why I decided to create a guitar transcription of The Night’s Music by Béla Bartók. To consider the effect of the change of medium is always important for the transcriber. This includes the examination of any possible transformation of the original character. If the nature or poetry of the original work were lost (during this transformation process), then the transcription’s raison d’être is controversial. In the case of the following Bartók transcription, the character does not go through a significant transformation; it does however emphasize the intimate mood and characteristic. But what happens if the characteristic fits the new medium but the texture is idiosyncratic?
Bartók’s composition is a multi-layer piece. The five-note clusters create an atmospheric background for the whole piece, and this becomes the first layer, upon which the composer builds other layers of imitated noises, a chorale melody and a peasant flute melody. Evidently, clusters do not work well on a traditionally tuned guitar, and neither is it possible to hold a chord as a layer, on which to build.
My idea was to invent special single-string capos,[24] which can hold the notes of the cluster, so the left-hand remains free to play. In 2017 I invented the first single-string capo, manufactured by Viktor Varga, goldsmith. Since then other single- and double-string models followed, to be detailed in other articles.[25] The target of the single- and double-string capos is to enable any ‘open strings sets’ by pressing down on any string at any fret.
Single string capo (Model1):[26]
Photos by Franciska Bethlenfalvy
With the cluster on open strings I could work with multi-layers, because the capos function as a kind of pedal, holding the notes, leaving the left-hand free to play other motives above that layer, and the strings free to resonate. I reduced the 5 notes cluster to 4 notes. The first part of the piece consists of the background cluster and the imitations of the nature sounds.
Original:
Transcription:
The imitation of the sounds of nature consists of five different motives. Translating them took account of the choreography of the two mediums.
Motive 1: a soft sound nearly inaudible in the surrounding atmosphere:
Translation: a dark coloured natural harmonic on the 4th string:
Motive 2: dry and sharp staccato note (imitating a pebble falling into the water, according to some interpreters):
Translation: a combination of a note played on the 4th string and a very high harmonic on the 1st string, played using the edge of the nail, resulting in a metallico timbre:
Motive 3: a pair of short top notes – translated equivalently
Original:
Guitar version:
Motive 4: staccato notes with minor seconds – the ‘frogs motive’:
Translation: the dynamic changes are also supported with a gradual change of timbre between sul ponticello (at forte) and sul tasto (at piano):
Motive 5: rumbling motive:
Translation: with this more guitaristic solution on the lowest string played by a left-hand slur, the effect is similar to the original:
Here are sections with the original and the translated motives.
Original:
Transcription:
The second part of the piece forms a chorale melody.
Original: The single line melody (coloured with a parallel octave) expresses the loneliness of the human soul.
Translation: The lonely character is better expressed by playing a single line alone on the guitar.
The third section brings in a tune of the peasant flute.
The melody line accompanied rhythmically with chords and strummed chords is quite idiomatic on the guitar as well.
Original:
Transcription:
The final part summarizes all the layers and brings in all the themes together. This stretto, the actual compositional climax, is idiomatically challenging – when translated to the guitar – but not exceptional in the guitar literature, e.g. the passacaglia section of Britten’s Nocturnal.
Original version of the compositional climax:
Transcription of the compositional climax:
The piece ends with a coda, quoting the introduction of the piece, an atmospheric vision of nature. With the last few bars, the listener is drifting away from Bartók’s vision, the memories scatter and the whole picture disappears. The colouristic capacities, as well as the guitar’s possibilities to create a passage with a diminuendo effect to a pianississimo dynamic range, makes this passage very successful:
The video recording of the transcription is available here:
Conclusion
The characteristics of a musical composition can be distinguished from its idiomatic nature. Our perception of an instrument’s character is shaped by cultural tradition, while our concept of the idiom is formed primarily by technical evolution. With the help of experimental tools and new technical solutions, seemingly idiosyncratic structures can become idiomatic. Exploring the influence of the nocturnal themes of the guitar, I found several traces of guitaristic archetypes in 20th-century night music. The creation of my guitar transcription of The Night’s Music by Béla Bartók was initiated by these examples.
Similarly, to the technical evolution of instrumental playing, new tools and inventions can tackle and reform the idiom too. Single-string capos can enable clusters, pedalled chords, and multi-layered structures as well as other complex musical textures. When adding these tools to the instrument and to transcriptions or new musical works, the idiomatic nature transforms.
Bartók’s nocturnal piece is characterlike to the guitar. This case study explores how the change of medium affected the character of the piece, emphasising its intimate nature, but not limiting the polyphonic and complex structures significantly.
Notes
[1] The only mention of the guitar in Bartók’s œuvre is in his Rumanian Folk Music volume I (Instrumental Melodies): ‘The Maramures violinists have as an accompanist a player of a kind of two-stringed guitar which is tuned in the perfect fifth d–a. He invariably plays equal eighths’ to all the pieces.’ This instrument called ‘zongor’ is imitated in Bartók’s Sonatina’s Second movement, Medvetánc (Bear Dance) too in the accompanying part. Bela Bartók, Rumanian Folk Music, ed. Benjamin Suchoff, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967). (Volume I: Instrumental Melodies), 16.
[2] Wallace Stevens, “The man with the blue guitar.” Poetry 50, no. 2 (1937): 61-69.
[3] ’Traditionally, the harana is sung below the window of the maiden‘s house under the romantic, and seemingly
intimate ambience drawn by the moon and the night. The singer (the lover, of course) is accompanied by his friends (who are also his instant teasers) playing either the guitar, the violin, or the flute, though at times these three are played together.’ Eugene De Los Santos, Western vocalism in 20th century Philippine music (PhD diss., Elisabeth University of Music, 2017),24.
[4] ’andalucia.com’, s.v. ” The traditional Tuna” last modified 2020, https://www.andalucia.com/culture/tunas.htm
[5] ‘[B]y the end of the century it was applied by such composers as Heinrich Biber (Serenade ‘Nightwatchman’s Call’, 1673) and J.J. Walther (Hortulus chelicus, 1688) to purely instrumental pieces, a usage accepted in the 18th century. It then came to stand, if loosely, for a work of a particular character, formal structure and instrumentation, of which Mozart’s serenades are the chief examples. Such works were composed mainly in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Bohemia; it was the practice to perform them at about 9 p.m. (the Notturno a similar kind of work, was usually given at about 11 p.m.). Relics of the original meaning of the term are found in the pizzicato accompaniment of the movement entitled ‘Serenade’ in the String Quartet op.3 no.5 attributed to Haydn (but probably by Roman Hoffstetter).’ Unverricht, Hubert, and Cliff Eisen. “Serenade.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000025454
[6] Ibid.
[7] Steve Goss, “Come Heavy Sleep: motive and metaphor in Britten‘s Nocturnal for Guitar Op. 70” Guitar Forum 1, EGTA (September 2001)
[8] ‘Steve Goss: On Britten’s Nocturnal’ Tonebase.co Video File.
[9] Paul Kildea, ed, Britten On Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 324–5.
[10] József Újfalussy, Béla Bartók (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1971), 232.
[11] Ibid.
[12] According to Bartok scholars the composer created ‘his most personal genre -night music-‘[12] with this piano piece, which later formed ‘the kernel of the Quartet No.4.’ too. Tibor Tallián, Béla Bartók: The man and his work (Budapest: Corvina Kiado,1981),156.
[13] Péter Bartók, My Father (Homosassa, Florida: Bartók Records, 2002), 164.
[14] Ibid, 161.
[15] Cluster definition: ‘A group of adjacent notes sounding simultaneously. Keyboard instruments are particularly suited to their performance, since they may readily be played with the fist, palm or forearm. Clusters were probably first used by Cowell in The Tides of Manaunaun for piano (1912), though Bartók seems to have made the innovation independently. Notable studies in cluster playing include Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI and Ligeti’s Volumina for organ. Orchestral clusters have become commonplace since the mid-1950s.’ “Cluster.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 14 Feb. 2020.
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005992
[16] David E. Schneider, Bartók, Hungary, and the renewal of tradition: Case studies in the intersection of modernity and nationality. Vol. 5. (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 2006.),85.
[17] ‘Let us recollect the great triptych of Debussy’s Iberia. In this work we are reminded first of the noisy clamour of a working day in a Spanish city; next comes the enchanted atmosphere of an evening full of the secretive rustlings, wisps of sound and fragrances evoked in Baudelaire’s famous poem ’Harmonie du Soir’…’ József Újfalussy, Béla Bartók (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1971), 233.
[18] ‘Cante jondo, (Andalusian Spanish: “deep song,” or “grand song”), the most serious and deeply moving variety of flamenco, or Spanish Gypsy song. The cante jondo developed a distinctive melodic style, the foremost characteristics of which are a narrow range, a predilection for the reiteration of one note in the manner of a recitative (intoned speech), a dramatic use of ornate melodic embellishment, an Oriental preoccupation with microtones (intervals smaller than a semitone), and a subtle, intricate rhythm that defies notation.’ “Cante jondo.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2018; Accessed 2020. https://www.britannica.com/art/cante-jondo
[19] Samuel Tirado Villaescusa, “Nights in the Spanish Gardens: Meaning and inspiration” (Master Research project, Royal conservatory of The Hague, 2013).https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/393093/423723
[20] Hora lungă: ‘A vocal and instrumental idiom of vernacular music-making recorded in Maramureş, an upland region ceded to Romania from Hungary in 1918. Béla Bartók‘s documentation of this genre (1923) began during a two-week visit in March 1913.’ Nixon, Paul. “Hora lunga.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 26 Mar. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000013339.
[21] Louise Duchesneau, Wolfgang Marx, György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), 26
[22] György Ligeti: Sonata for viola solo – preface, Schott Music
[23] József Újfalussy, Béla Bartók (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1971), 227
[24] Capo tasto, capodastro, capo d’astro or capo for short is ‘a mechanical device that shortens the vibrating length of the string, thereby raising the pitch.’ This widely acknowledged tool originated in the 16th century. ‘Traditionally the capo used to stop the entire width of the fretboard, i.e., all six strings; recently however, there have been experiments with partial capos, such as a “Spider Capo”, that allow a select number of strings to remain in the open tuning.’ Seth Josel, and Ming Tsao, The techniques of guitar playing (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2014),183.
[25] An article about new capos and their potentials available at Soundboard Scholar: Koltai, K. (2020) ‘Breaking the Matrix: Guitar transcriptions of Bartók and Ligeti using a new capo system.’ Soundboard Scholar 6, online: https://www.guitarfoundation.org/page/SbS06-Koltai
[26] Model 1: thin steel plate placed under five of the strings between the frets on the fretboard but bridging over the remaining string to hold it down against the fret. This capo is somewhat slow to affix, and so cannot be changed mid-piece, but is also very firmly positioned.
References
Bela Bartók, Rumanian Folk Music, ed. Benjamin Suchoff, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967). (Volume I: Instrumental Melodies)
Péter Bartók, My Father (Homosassa, Florida: Bartók Records, 2002)
Louise Duchesneau, Wolfgang Marx, György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011)
Seth Josel, and Ming Tsao, The techniques of guitar playing (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2014)
Paul Kildea, ed, Britten On Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
György Ligeti: Sonata for viola solo – preface, Schott Music
Eugene De Los Santos, Western vocalism in 20th century Philippine music (PhD diss., Elisabeth University of Music, 2017)
David E. Schneider, Bartók, Hungary, and the renewal of tradition: Case studies in the intersection of modernity and nationality. Vol. 5.(Berkeley,CA: Univ of California Press, 2006.)
Wallace Stevens, “The man with the blue guitar.” Poetry 50, no. 2 (1937)
Tibor Tallián, Béla Bartók: The man and his work (Budapest: Corvina Kiado,1981)
Samuel Tirado Villaescusa, “Nights in the Spanish Gardens: Meaning and inspiration” (Master Research project, Royal conservatory of The Hague, 2013).
József Újfalussy, Béla Bartók (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1971)
https://www.andalucia.com/culture/tunas.htm
Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
Grove Music Online. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com
Biography of Katalin Koltai
Katalin Koltai is a Phd researcher and internationally acclaimed guitarist, soloist, and chamber musician, performing regularly with major orchestras and constant champion of contemporary music, creating interdisciplinary stage works and transcriptions. She records for North/South Recordings, Naxos, Hungaroton and Genuin. Her transcriptions from various musical eras have been published by Doblinger Austria, and received international critical acclaim. Katalin gained degrees from the Budapest Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Royal Conservatory of Bruxelles, and the Conservatorium Maastricht.
She is a third year PhD researcher at the International Guitar Research Centre, University of Surrey, focuses on guitar transcription and new music for guitar, supervised by Steve Goss and Tom Armstrong. She invented a new magnet capo system and a new guitar prototype, the ’Ligeti Guitar’.
As a researcher, she published in Soundboard Scholar, Lute Society of America Quarterly, Bloomsbury Academic and gave talks at GFA Convention, 21st Century Guitar Conference Portugal, Dublin Guitar Symposium. Currently a FASS Scholarship Holder, Katalin is a former fellow of the Dutch Cultural Ministry and winner of the Royal Musical Association Frank Howes Grant, the American Musical Instrument Society Research Grant and the Hungarian Junior Prima Prize.