The String Quartet

Soon after the composer’s death in 1945, the six string quartets by Béla Bartók acquired an inviolable status, comparable to that of Beethoven. Together with his friend and professional brother Zoltán Kodály, Bartók extensively investigated the folk music of his native country in the first decades of the 20th century. Mainly because the urban gypsy music in the cafés was too often regarded as typically Hungarian, thus ignoring the true nature of Hungarian folk art.

The three movements of the First String Quartet can be seen as one continuous road upwards, from darkness to light. In the introduction (Introduzione) to the finale, Bartók paraphrases a popular folk melody: “There is only one beautiful girl in the world”. The Second String Quartet has a similar structure. Please note the brilliant Allegro molto capriccioso. How exciting can a scherzo be? Bartók gets to the heart of Hungarian folk music here.