Describing Béla Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1, Sz. 75, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja notes
The power in the first movement, the loneliness of the violin melody and the states of panic in the second; the almost grotesquely joyful and folk-like character of the third — it’s a special joy if you can play it with pleasure and without stress, without worrying about all its terrifying difficulties. It’s technically extremely difficult, with all the micro-canons going past at breakneck speed…
Bartók composed this evocative music in 1921, concurrently with the score for the “pantomime grotesque” ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin. The Sonata was written for Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Aranyi, the great-niece of Joseph Joachim, the violinist who worked closely with Brahms. Bartók and d’Aranyi gave the premiere in London in 1922.
Infused with the influences of Hungarian folk music, which the composer spent years studying and collecting, the Sonata’s three movements unfold rhapsodically, with frequent tempo changes. Hugh Macdonald observes that “neither player ever shares the other’s material (this is not Mozart) or even seems to react to it; they often appear to be inhabiting different musical worlds only to come together at crucial moments and to enjoy each other’s rhapsodizing in a thoroughly spontaneous and uninhibited fashion.” Dreamy, haunting, and atmospheric, the music wanders into the hazy world of atonality and the exotic whole-tone scale, only to return briefly to a tonal center. It ventures into the world of Bartók’s “Night music,” in which we hear something akin to the hum of insects, frog calls, and birdsongs.
The first movement (Allegro appassionato) begins with a lamenting fiddle melody which floats above the piano’s ghostly arpeggios. At times, there are faint echoes of the shrieking voices of The Miraculous Mandarin.
The lamenting second movement (Adagio) begins with a wandering melody, heard in the violin alone. The piano enters with a cosmic chorale which drifts into parallel chords. Its stoic timelessness stands in contrast with the violin’s weeping, longing exclamations.
Erupting with wild, terrifying energy, the final movement (Allegro) is an exhilarating folk dance. There are zesty, irregular rhythms, swirling arpeggios and glissandi, and strumming pizzicati. The frenzied coda concludes with a vibrant if unsettling tone cluster, which blends a C-sharp major and C-sharp minor with an added seventh (B) in the violin.
I. Allegro appassionato:
II. Adagio:
III. Allegro:
Five Great Recordings
- Bartók: Violin Sonata No. 1, Sz. 75, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Fazıl Say Out Here Music
- David Oistrakh and Frida Bauer
- Zoltán Kocsis and Barnabás Kelemen
- Yehudi Menuhin and Adolph Baller
- Isabelle Faust and Ewa Kupiec