Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts: political, social and cultural
- Part II Profiles of the music
- 3 Bartók's orchestral music and the modern world
- 4 The stage works: portraits of loneliness
- 5 Vocal music: inspiration and ideology
- 6 Piano music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements
- 7 Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music
- 8 The Piano Concertos and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
- 9 Works for solo violin and the Viola Concerto
- 10 The String Quartets and works for chamber orchestra
- Part III Reception
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
6 - Piano music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements
from Part II - Profiles of the music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts: political, social and cultural
- Part II Profiles of the music
- 3 Bartók's orchestral music and the modern world
- 4 The stage works: portraits of loneliness
- 5 Vocal music: inspiration and ideology
- 6 Piano music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements
- 7 Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music
- 8 The Piano Concertos and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
- 9 Works for solo violin and the Viola Concerto
- 10 The String Quartets and works for chamber orchestra
- Part III Reception
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Bartók worked as a piano teacher for most of his life. He began to give piano lessons as a teenager while still in Pozsony, and eventually succeeded his own teacher, István Thomán, at the Budapest Academy of Music in 1907, where he taught for nearly thirty years. During his last years in America he maintained private students. If, ironically, piano teaching was not his primary musical and creative focus, falling rather distantly behind composition, folksong study and performance, he was nevertheless a conscientious and thorough teacher. Although a few notable performers, such as György Sándor, emerged from his studio, he never established the kind of following enjoyed by his colleague at the Academy, Ernoʺ Dohnányi. Piano teaching provided a basic source of income that enabled him to devote himself to his more compelling occupations. Bartók's greatest pedagogical contributions may be, therefore, not a pianistic legacy through his students, but the creative results of applications of his compositional work to teaching purposes. From the beginning his pedagogical ideas were bound up with folksong study, which was the primary catalyst in the development of his unique musical language. As he wrote much later, in 1940:
Already at the very beginning of my career as a composer I had the idea to write some easy works for piano students. This idea originated in my experience as a piano teacher. I had always the feeling that the available material, especially for beginners, has no real musical value, with the exception of very few works – for instance, Bach's easiest pieces and Schumann's Jugendalbum. I thought these works to be insufficient, and so, more than thirty years ago I myself tried to write some easy piano pieces. At that time I thought the best thing to do would be to use folk tunes. Folk melodies, in general, have great musical value; so at least the thematical value would be secured.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Bartók , pp. 92 - 103Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001