Romanian Folk Dances

Composer: BARTÓK, Béla
  • Bartók composed his Román nepi táncok (“Romanian Folk Dances”) for piano (BB68) in 1915. In 1917 he arranged the set for orchestra.1
  • Bartók was an ethnomusicologist and collector of folk music. 2
    • Bartók made 3400 wax cylinder recordings of Hungarian folk music sung or played by Transylvanian peasants between 1909-1917.3
  • The melodies of these danced originated in Transylvania, which was part of Hungary in 1915.4
    • The work’s original title was Romanian Folk Dances from Hungary. Bartók shortened the title when the Treaty of Trianon annexed Transylvania to nation of Romania.5
  • The melodies in this set come from 4 regions in Transylvania and represent 6 dance forms. As folk tunes, the melodies would have been originally played on violin or shepherd’s flute.6
    • Bartók left these folk melodies essentially unchanged but harmonized them in modernist style. 7

Sources

  1. Pierre Grondines, liner notes to Bartók, Les Violons du Roy, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Atma 2576, CD, 2008.
  2. Malcolm Gillies, “Bartók, Béla,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040686. 
  3. Pierre Grondines, liner notes to Bartók, Les Violons du Roy, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Atma 2576, CD, 2008.
  4. David Yeomans, Bartók for Piano: A Survey of His Solo Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 200), 75.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Ibid.

Cut IDs

48144 41136 48145 10014 18263 19869