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Texture: Bartók String Quartet No.5 (Second Movement)

Eighty years ago, Béla Bartók reinvented the string quartet by evoking strange nighttime sounds and unusual textures in the slow movements of his quartets. In the second movement of his Fifth String Quartet, Bartók creates an atmospheric texture where time stands still through the second violin playing a constant tremolo, the first violin playing quick nervous scales moving through a tritone, the viola playing disjoined pizzicato notes like night insects, and the cello providing melodic fragments that direct the music.

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David Wolfswinkel
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68 views1 page

Texture: Bartók String Quartet No.5 (Second Movement)

Eighty years ago, Béla Bartók reinvented the string quartet by evoking strange nighttime sounds and unusual textures in the slow movements of his quartets. In the second movement of his Fifth String Quartet, Bartók creates an atmospheric texture where time stands still through the second violin playing a constant tremolo, the first violin playing quick nervous scales moving through a tritone, the viola playing disjoined pizzicato notes like night insects, and the cello providing melodic fragments that direct the music.

Uploaded by

David Wolfswinkel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Texture:

Bartók String Quartet No.5 (second movement)

Eighty years ago, the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók reinvented the sound of the string
quartet as we know it. In some of the slow music from these quartets he evokes through
unusual textures and sounds the strange sounds of night.

- This music that is about creating


an atmosphere – about making
time stand still – so it is not
important to move it forward in
the conventional kind of way.

- The second violin plays a tremolo


on its lowest note throughout

- The first violin has quick, nervous


upward and downward scales
(each of these moves through
the notes between the interval of
a tritone (or augmented 4th)

- The viola has several disjoined


pairs of pizzicato notes (a little
like one of those night insects
that we can all hear, but not see)

- The cello has fragments of


melody, pulling the music
together and giving it direction.

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