Selected Writings on Music

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LAJOS BÁRDOS SELECTED WRITINGS
ON MUSIC
This collection selected from the writings of Lajos Bárdos adds new colour to the rich storehouse of musicology. The author studied composition with Kodály and was subsequently active as a conductor, music-teacher, editor, composer and musicologist. The ingenuity of his writings on musical theory derives from this versatility. He takes Bartók's and Kodály's works written mainly for the youth one by one and explains their stylistic components with regard to melody, tonality, harmony, polyphony and form. He demonstrates how Liszt turned Palestrina's chords into an individual, new kind of music. It is pointed out how the rhythm and line formulae of the millennial European verse are retrace-able even in the instrumental music of Bach and Beethoven. The reader is introduced to a specific mode of melody formation so far unknown in the common knowledge about music, i.e. organics. It is shown how this technique is instrumental in creating works of... Tovább

Fülszöveg

LAJOS BÁRDOS SELECTED WRITINGS
ON MUSIC
This collection selected from the writings of Lajos Bárdos adds new colour to the rich storehouse of musicology. The author studied composition with Kodály and was subsequently active as a conductor, music-teacher, editor, composer and musicologist. The ingenuity of his writings on musical theory derives from this versatility. He takes Bartók's and Kodály's works written mainly for the youth one by one and explains their stylistic components with regard to melody, tonality, harmony, polyphony and form. He demonstrates how Liszt turned Palestrina's chords into an individual, new kind of music. It is pointed out how the rhythm and line formulae of the millennial European verse are retrace-able even in the instrumental music of Bach and Beethoven. The reader is introduced to a specific mode of melody formation so far unknown in the common knowledge about music, i.e. organics. It is shown how this technique is instrumental in creating works of art of almost nothing, starting from the Gregorian chant up to Kodály. By scrutinizing Kodály's music the author discovers that besides diatony there is a certain "second heptatony" as well which can enrich the musical expression through innumerable new features and colours of melody and
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harmony. The entirely novel employment of an ancient Greek scale, the "modus locricus" is also demonstrated through Kodály's music. The structure of Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" is cast light upon by showing up the connections, stylistic and formal functions of the three movements. The author's analyses reveal his profound knowledge of the original music work and his association with live music. He is dubious about the "rules" laid customarily down in books on theory. Not the works are squeezed in "laws" but the composidons themselves investigated to deduce of them not rules but deep insights and observations. In the work of Lajos Bárdos two approaches become united: the meticulous, almost microscopical examination of the material and the comprehensive view of the works as a whole. His large-scale, new system of musical theory has been crystalized from the living music practice, from chorales to Liszt's music, from Gregorian chant to Kodály, from folksongs to Bartók. The author may well claim that he "did not compile an eleventh book out of ten" as he imparts to the readers—scholars and fellow-teachers, musicians and inquiring amateurs or whatever their profession may be—his own thoughts and observations.
EDITIO MUSICA BUDAPEST Vissza