More of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, 3rd movement.
I know this is not make-out music, but it is really amazing.
Bartok conjures some very dark spirits with intelligence and wit. He never once loses his nerve and slips into sentimentality or cliche.
Lord knows some very very dark spirits flew around Bartok's native Hungary and throughout Europe in his lifetime. He had the courage to stare them down and lock them into brilliant works of music.
Here is the spirited Finale.
Sorry folks, but I think Bartok is so amazingly cool.
2 comments:
I concur entirely. I don't listen to Bartok so much now, but I remember, in college, that I was taking a music appreciation course--I was never a musician myself, only fooled around on a mandolin--and the Juliard String Quartet actually performed in Sherman, Texas, and ended their performance with Bartok's sixth string quartet, and I was utterly taken with it.
I remember my music professer saying how, when he was a student, he attended a series of all six of Bartok's string quartets, and he was so moved by them he couldn't listen to any music, or play any music, for an entire week thereafter, only wanted to allow them to resonate for a while.
Many, understandably, have difficulty with serious music after Schoenberg. Bartok provided, for me, the breakthrough realization that these difficult and challenging styles could carry a real emotional punch, and introduce a new and strange beauty.
I'm definitely not a music maven, but I've always loved Bartok, and I haven't sat down and really listened to his music for years. This is all a big fresh rediscovery of an old friend for me.
I must admit to a taste for those composers on the cusp between romanticism and expressionism. Mahler is another big favorite of mine.
I haven't listened to the Bartok quartets in ages. I will have to look those up and spend time with them.
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