This concerto opened other doors of sound than other pieces in the literature before it. It combined equal amounts of dissonance with mathematical forms. He was fond of forms on a mathematical basis all throughout his career. This concerto also features melodies that are reminiscent of the vast quantities of folk music he collected throughout his career. Many tones of melody are composed in a series of fourths. This is also mixed with twelve tone row components. The texture features chromatic mediants in some places (This is to say you can start with one major chord and go a third up and strike the major chord that can be formed there).
It for sure is one of the most brilliant classical music treasures of the World War II era. The music is visually appealing, at least to the mind. The ears are sure stimulated too by how the string beds are dissonant or major or minor in harmony with the flutes, clarinets, and oboe parts are doing side melodies throughout. It is a brilliant display of orchestral color which is what every composer longs to do when composing a masterpiece.
The textures of the bassoons and other instruments really brings joy and a healthy dose of curiosity and intrigue. There are many points of intrigue that are interwoven in the string beds that play in a major and minor key going back and forth.
The really intriguing parts have to do with the chromatic mediants that are decorated with increasing chromaticism going upward and then resolving in a major tonality as if to say, you’re going from a place of tension to relaxation. It is really great to hear the different reed woodwind groups play across the orchestra. It’s really striking.
The brass harmonies display the modes that were so prevalent in the music that Bartok collected and arranged. The tonal harmonies are grouped in fourths, some intervals that would normally be used in Jazz Music which is very interesting to be seen here. All that fancy runs that are in the piece along with the intoxicating harp paint an image that is some reminiscent of the works of Alban Berg. It sounds that it could be dropped right into a classic, black and white movie soundtrack.
The next movement features the double bass in fourths with a more mystifying sound than the previous movement. We think today that the kind of weird tonalities or harmonies that we hear (for example, the switching back and forth motion of the major and minor thirds of some chords) are so commonplace. Well, they’re not. They came at at time when these harmonies didn’t exist. Bartok was one of the fathers of some of these harmonic devices we find so easy to use and implement today.
The sweeping dissonant harmonic and melodic frameworks combined with little patches of a resolute major tendencies is symbolism of the time of Bartok. It is sound and sometimes, sound can’t be expressed in mere words. One has to listen to this to get the full experience and to basically live it! Take a listen.
