Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4: Fearful Symmetry

The greatest music requires deep, active listening. You can’t just put it on in the background and allow it to waft over you as you go about other tasks. It demands undivided attention. Initially, it may seem wildly incomprehensible. Its meaningfulness may be revealed gradually over the course of repeated listenings.

Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4, composed in Budapest during the summer of 1928, is one of those mysterious and monumental pieces. The music scholar, Halsey Stevens, described it best when he wrote,

The Fourth Quartet comes close to being, if it does not actually represent, Bartók’s greatest and most profound achievement. It is by no means easy to understand; it requires the most active sort of listening, and the passive listener is likely to find his head whirling in a welter of exciting but confusing sound. But once its arcana are discovered, there are few works of this century so meaningful or so rewarding.

Bartók, who unleashed a magical new 20th century musical vocabulary, was aware of influences, both past and contemporary. He wrote,

Debussy restored a feeling for chords to all musicians. He was as important as Beethoven who revealed to us progressive form, and as Bach who introduced us to the transcendence of counterpoint. I always ask myself, could one make a synthesis of these three masters and create a vital contemporary style?

Such a synthesis can be heard in the Fourth String Quartet. As with Bach’s counterpoint, we are drawn into a cosmic dialogue in which there are no extraneous notes. As with Beethoven, the music develops organically through dense, compact motifs. As with the rule-breaking Debussy, sonorities are infused with expressive meaning.

These distinctive sonorities are made up of the whole-tone, pentatonic, and octatonic scales, which are divided into symmetrical units to become subsets of the chromatic scale. As a result, the music inhabits harmonic regions, based on “axes of symmetry,” and centered around single pitches. It drifts into exotic modal territory, and throbs with the edgy tone clusters of Henry Cowell. Amid all of this are the free-spirited strains of Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian folk music—sounds that the composer documented during his youthful travels into the remote countryside, and which served as a creative wellspring.

As with many of Bartók’s works, the Fourth String Quartet exhibits an awe-inspiring formal symmetry. The five movements outline an arch structure (A-B-C-B-A). Bartók described the haunting third movement (Non troppo lento) as the “kernel of the work,” with the other movements “arranged in layers around it.” In the opening of the third movement, the two violins and viola enter in succession from highest to lowest, hushed and without vibrato, and melt into dreamy pan-diatonic harmony. Accompanied by hazy tones, the solo cello sings a passionately lamenting soliloquy. There are echoes of the tárogató, a pastoral Hungarian single-reed instrument. The movement’s middle section ventures into the atmospheric world of Bartók’s Night music, with birdcalls and the raspy hum of insects on a summer night. The distinct tonal color is created with a technique known as ponticello, in which the bow is placed close to the bridge. The second violin takes centerstage with a snarling solo, filled with jagged folk rhythms. The movement concludes with an imitative conversation between the cello and first violin.

The second and fourth movements are related scherzi. The second movement (Prestissimo, con sordino) begins as a nightmarish murmur. The muted voices become a ghostly swarm against the backdrop of a wildly irregular rhythmic heartbeat. A dizzying game of cat and mouse unfolds, punctuated with eerie, whistling glissandi. A wild, unrelenting dance intensifies, before fading away, suddenly. The fourth movement (Allegretto pizzicato) is a free variation of the second, with all of the instruments playing pizzicato. Throughout, there are examples of the percussive snap pizzicato, in which the string is plucked in such a way as to snap back against the fingerboard.

The outer movements are thematically related. From the opening bars of the Quartet, the symmetry extends to musical lines which mirror one another, moving in contrary motion. A rising and falling recurring chromatic motif, heard in the cello in the seventh measure, also displays symmetry. The first movement is filled with dense, charged counterpoint and chilling suspense. As the complex, asymmetrical folk rhythms unfold, a strange sense of groove develops. Commentator Bruce Adolphe has compared a passage near the end of the movement, in which two sonic worlds collide, with a cinematic editing technique, used by Alfred Hitchcock, to dramatically juxtapose two contrasting images.

The final movement (Allegro molto) erupts as a wild, exuberant folk dance. With earthy pulsating tone clusters, it is pure rock and roll. The six-note symmetrical motif from the first movement returns. Gradually, it “takes over” the music, repeating obsessively in the coda, and landing as an emphatic exclamation point in the final bar.

This recording features the Keller Quartet:

Five Great Recordings

Featured Image: the Fibonacci Sequence on display in a 13th century staircase at Spain’s Museum of Galician History, photograph by Carlos Torres

About Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa.

The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States.

A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals.

In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

2 thoughts on “Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4: Fearful Symmetry”

  1. Both musicians and music lovers alike are looking forward to the analysis and study of the rest of Bartók’s quartets, which are as exciting as they are difficult to listen to and perform. Congratulations on these wonderful posts, which I never miss. Greetings from Valencia, Spain.

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  2. What a beautifully written post! I loved hearing this piece, which was a new discovery for me. Perfect for listening to through the AirPods, so as not to miss the “ghostly swarm” (as you so wonderfully put it). Thrilled also that you made mention of Hitchcock. As I listened Bernard Hermann’s music immediately came to mind and wondered if he had been inspired by Bartok. Felicitations from CT!

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