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It is astonishing that The Miraculous
Mandarin’s scenes of urban decay and the pastoral of Evening with the
Székelys, the almost brutal dissonances of the First Piano Concerto and the
gentleness of Mikrokosmos could come from the pen of one man: Béla Bartók
(1881-1945), one of the most celebrated composers of the twentieth century and
one of the founding fathers of the discipline of ethnomusicology. Bartók’s
contradictions do not end with the eclecticism of his musical style: this
composer that many histories of music remember primarily as a “Hungarian
nationalist” researched the folk music of Romanians and Slovaks as much as that
of Hungarians, and wrote passionately about the “immense variety […] of melodies
and melodic types” that had resulted from mixing of peoples.
In this course we will make a survey of some of Bartók’s major compositions and
writings, and we will address how his work responded to the changing climate –
both artistic and political – of east-central Europe in the first half of the
twentieth century. Finally we will explore Bartók’s legacy on both sides of the
Iron Curtain, and since 1989.
Goodbody Hall 157 | 1011 East 3rd St. | Bloomington, IN 47405-7005 | Phone: (812) 855-2233 | Fax: (812) 855-7500 | ceus@indiana.edu