Bartok Mikrokosmos

I had my first exposure to Bartok my freshman year, when I played three pieces from the fifth volume of the Mikrokosmos. The Mikrokosmos is a set of 153 progressive piano pieces in six volumes, composed between 1926 and 1939. Volumes 1 and 2 are intended for beginning pianist, and volumes 5 and 6 consist of professional repertoire. There are people who have recorded all six volumes. I think this is amazing. Anyway, Bartok is most definitely an acquired taste. I didn't appreciate him for quite a while after I started playing these pieces. And by "didn't appreciate him", I mean that I truly despised the pieces. I didn't understand them, they're most certainly not traditionally tonal in nature, and they were more difficult to play than I expected. But I learned to love them, as I started to deal with them on a more intimate level.

The first piece is #122, entitled "Chords Together and in Opposition." This still isn't a piece which I would listen to for fun. I don't wake up on bright, sunny mornings and think, "Man, I really need to listen to Chords Together and in Opposition like right now!" But it is riotous fun to play. I imagine that it's the same sort of fun which a four-year-old enjoys when banging out clashing chords on a piano. The piece in itself is a wonderful stress reliever. It wound up being a bit of an empowering thing, feeling like my quiet, passive self could play such a loud, raucous, blatantly rude-sounding piece. And play it well, if I might add.

The second piece in my little set, "Boating", is a barcarolle. A barcarolle is a folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers. The rhythm is supposed to be reminiscent of a gondolier’s oar strokes. Obviously, this piece isn’t actually a barcarolle, but it’s supposed to evoke that feeling, hence the name. It's equally as grating as the first piece, but in a different way. It's sad, and eerie. It reminds me a bit of one of the Shostakovich preludes which I mentioned in an earlier post (Op. 34 no. 22)

I was never able to play the last little piece up to my standards, despite it being my favorite piece of the three. It's called "Bagpipe Music", #138 in the Mikrokosmos. The rhythms are what initially fascinated me about the piece, and what made it so fun to play. It's one of those pieces that I still idly tap out on tables subconsciously. (I sometimes wonder if all pianists do this, play keyboards on desks and tables when bored or idle.) Despite the rhythms being quite strange, once I was able to play them, they were very comfortable. Not easy to play at a desired tempo, but comfortable when played slowly. The piece is so lively. Bartok was heavily influenced by Hungarian folk music, and it's absurdly obvious to hear in this piece. It's like a rustic peasant bagpipe dance, except no one could actually dance to an underlying rhythm like that one. I also particularly like all the quintuplets used in the melody, and the fact that it vaguely reminds me of another of the Shostakovich preludes (Op. 34 no. 21).

I couldn’t find any recordings of these pieces on youtube. It was discouraging enough that I almost didn’t post this. So please, find recordings if you can. Or if you’re really curious, hunt me down and I’ll play them for you. As I said before, it’s an acquired taste. I’m becoming a fan of 20^th century music, but I am particularly fond of these. I think that they're worth listening to at least once.