Béla Bartók: Roumanian Folk Dances: Viola: Instrumental Work

This is a new edition of Béla Bartók?s popular Romanian Folk Dances in its original scoring for Solo Piano. With fascinating background notes and unique imagery this publication is essential for pianistsinterested in the work of the Hungarian composer.When Bartók?was just 23 years old he visited the Transylvanian town of?Gerlicepuszta. Overhearing a lullaby sung by a teenage servant girl named LidiDósa he quizzed her about it and noted it down. This was the beginning of a passion for folk music that would go on to change the course of the composer's life and work. Romanian FolkDances?remains one of Bartók's most popular and enduring works evoking the folk melodies combined with his own idiosyncratic harmonies and textures. Each of the six short pieces here is based on atraditional melody which Bartók?penned during his travels.? Including newly engraved masterpieces?Stick Dance Waistband Dance In One Spot Dance From Butschum Romanian Polkaand Fast Dance this sheet music collection features editorial revisions guided by recordings of Bartók's own performance. The notation also includes fingering guidancethroughout. Romanian Folk Dances also?features a specially-written introduction as well as some fantastic photographs that both tell the story of the young composer and the intriguingbackstory of this work.? One of the most important 20th century composers and along with Liszt one of Hungary's finest musical minds Bartók?held a strong fascination for folkmusic. Through his studies recordings and arrangements he composed some incredible music like these?Romanian Folk Dances ?while simultaneously initiating the field of

The 'Romanian Folk Dances' undoubtedly rank amongst Bartók's most popular compositions. The earliest version is scored for piano (1915) and was published by Universal Edition in 1918. The composer himself orchestrated this version in 1917. Several other chamber music arrangements (for example Zoltán Székely's version for violin and piano) were not by Bartók although he authorised them. The musical material derives from Bartók's collections of folk music which date right back to 1904 when he wrote down a melody sung by a Hungarian peasant girl. In the course of extensive travels throughout Eastern Europe Bartókcompiled an enormous collection of folk tunes (by 1918 his collection comprised no fewer than 2700 Hungarian 3500 Romanian and 3000 Slovak dances and songs) which would in all probability have been lost had Bartók not written them down. As it was some of them found their way into his compositions. In 1908 Bartók jotted down dance tunes in Transsylvania. They are the source of the 'Romanian Folk Dances'.

Par BARTOK BELA. What distinguishes Béla Bartók from most of his European contemporaries is his lifelong dedication to folk music. He began to look into Hungarian peasant music out of musical interest only, but gradually extended his research to the neighbouring countries' folk music to study relatedness and differences, origins and influences. Bartók started to collect Romanian folk tunes in 1908, in 1915 he adapted them to be played on the piano – his “Romanian Christmas Carols” (UE 5890). This edition of sheet music provides the rewarding opportunity to plan a concert quite different to every other Christmas concert. This arrangement of Bartók's varied composition makes full use of a saxophone quartet's abundant acoustic possibilities. The colourful pieces will enhance the saxophone quartet repertoire./ Répertoire / 4 Saxophones [SATB]

4 Original Works by 22 Composers-The World's Great Classical Music. Intermediate to advanced Piano solo arrangements of 40 original works by 22 major composers presented in unedited urtext editions. Highlights of this sizable 256-page volume include: Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Major (Bach) Romanian Folk Dances (Bartók) Rage Over a Lost Penny (Beethoven) Polonaise Militaire (Chopin) To Spring (Grieg) Solace (Joplin) Rondo alla Turca (Mozart) Arabesque Op. 18 (Schumann) and dozens more. Piano Classics includes biographies for each composer.

Béla Bartók's Sonatina for solo Piano. Suitable for pianists at an intermediate level. In his Sonatina Bartók used different melodies taken fromRomanian instrumental folk. From examining the sources it is clear to see how in 1915 the piece slowly evolved out of a series of Piano transcriptions of Romanian folk melodies into its three-movement form. This HenleUrtext Edition has been released prior to its publication as part of the Complete Edition. In this edition Bartók specialist László Somfai outlines the work’s exciting genesis and expounds onBartók’s later revision during which he not only changed the tempi but also the fingerings. The insightful notes on the work's background are complemented by indications on how to play the verycomplex Piano notation by Bartók himself and from his recordings. This edition provides an invitation to pianists to rediscover this Sonatina.

Bartók wrote the first dance around the time of the Romanian movements of the 'Seven Sketches' after his first trip collecting Romanian folk music in July-August 1909. The second dance is the fruit of March the following year and it was only after some time he decided they should be published as a pair. From the beginning audiences were impressed by the first dance in the composer's peculiar performance with its initial drumming and its driving rhythms. If less popular compositionally the second dance is more original. He parades and varies his material in a chain form and this too is reminiscent of the dances heard in the playing of Romanian Transylvanian villagemusicians which in his scholarly work Bartók called 'motive dances.' (HCD 32525 Bartók New Series Vol. 25 László Somfai)