AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
1.
Autograph, the complete manuscript of Bartók’s collection
of Slovak folk songs containing 1,200 pages.
2.
Audio material of Slovak folk songs consisting of 220
phonograph recordings.
3.
The collection of photographs made by Bartók during the
research in Slovakia which document his way of work, as
well as performers, singers, their way of life, costumes and
architecture.
4.
Printed volumes I – III and prepared volume IV, including
analytical and systematic lists of melodies and lyrics, as well
as comparative data.
The work is administered by the Slovak National Library in
Martin. It is the biggest and most complete volume of Slovak
folk songs collected by Béla Bartók. In it he presented an
excellent knowledge of the Slovak language, which enabled him
to write down also song lyrics of various dialects and difficulty.
Due to its demanding and extensive comparative comments and
references, melody records, it is one of the most complicated
texts for editing which has ever originated in ethnomusicology; the
collection is Bartók’s masterpiece and one of the most significant
works of European ethnomusicology.
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The project was presented
and prepared by Prof. Oskár Elschek helped by the Slovak
Committee of the Memory of the World on June 9, 2004 and it was
unanimously approved that the project be submitted by the Slovak
Republic to UNESCO as a proposal for the entry into the register
of the UNESCO Memory of the World 2004.
1.2 Slovak Folk Song in the Compositions of Béla Bartók
In Bartók’s compositions four kinds and methods of arrangement
of folk songs can be found:
A simple arrangement, transcription of a folk song;
An arrangement of a folk song;
Free usage of melodic or rhythmic elements of folk songs;
Bartók’s inventive independent works.
Bartók quoted and arranged Hungarian and Slovak folk songs
collected on the territory of Slovakia in the following
compositions: Four Slovak Folk Songs (BB 46, 1907), Fourteen
Bagatelles, for piano (BB 50/5, 1908), For Children – vols. 3
and 4 (BB 53, 1908 – 1909), Slovak Folk Song “Krúti Tóno
vretena” (BB 73, 1916), Slovak Folk Songs, for male chorus
(BB 77, 1917), Four Slovak Folk Songs, for mixed chorus and
piano (BB 78, 1917), In the Village, for female voice and piano
(BB 87a, 1924), Three Village Scenes, for four (or eight) female
voices and chamber orchestra (BB 87b, 1926), 44 Duos, for two
violins (BB 104, 1931). Hungarian folk songs found and
recorded in Slovakia can be detected in the following
compositions: For Children – vol. 1 (BB 53, 1908 – 1909), Four
Old Hungarian Folk Songs, for male chorus (BB 60, 1910 –
1912), Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs, for piano (BB 79,
1914 – 1918), Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, for voice and
piano (BB 98, 1929), 44 Duos, for two violins (BB 104, 1931).
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Bartók elaborated the first song from Four Slovak Folk Songs
(BB 46, 1907) on the basis of a Slovak folk song tune V tej
bystrickej bráne..., from his own collection from 1906. He
recorded a 40-year-old singing woman from Gemer, Hrlica
village, on the phonograph. This folk song appears not only in
Four Slovak Folk Songs, but also in the third volume of his
instructive piano series For Children.
Music sample No. 1. V tej bystrickej bráne. Source: Slovenské
ľudové piesne III, No. 1160b)
8
Information about the activity of the Slovak committee for the UNESCO programme
Memory of the World: The present state and new nominations to the world register of
the UNESCO Memory of the World [online]. [s.a.]. [Quoted 2008-04-08]. Accessible
on: <http://www.ulib.sk/index/go.php?id=1997/>
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LAMPERT, Vera:
Népzene Bartók műveiben: feldolgozott dallamok forrásjegyzéke.
Budapest: Helikon, 2005, p. 15.
The following song is based on the Slovak folk song Pod lipkou,
nad lipkou, which was sung by Zuzana Drábová (then 17-year-
old girl), also from Gemer, Hrlica village, in 1906. This song,
too, was elaborated in the third volume of For Children.
Music sample No.2: Pod lipkou, nad lipkou (Source: Slovenské
ľudové piesne II, No. 531a)
The third song is based on the Slovak folk song Nebanovala bi,
sung for Bartók by an unknown child from Gemer, Filiar village
in 1906.
Music sample No. 3: Nebanovala bi
(Source: Slovenské ľudové
piesne I, No. 47b)
In the fourth song Bartók arranged the Slovak folk song Priletel
fták from Dražovce village, Nitra county. Jozefína Homolová
sung for the record in 1907.
Music sample No. 4: Priletel fták
(Source: Slovenské ľudové
piesne III, No. 1440g)
In the composition Fourteen Bagatelles for piano (BB 50/5,
1908) Bartók elaborated the folk song Ej popred naš, popred
naš, popred naše dvere, sung by Zuzana Drábová from Hrlice
village, Gemer county.
Music sample No. 5: Ej popred naš, popred naš, popred naše
dvere
(Source: Slovenské ľudové piesne II, No. 692a)
The biggest number of Slovak folk songs were arranged in the
third and fourth volumes of the work For Children (BB 53, 1908
– 1909). The complete title of the series is Easy piano pieces for
beginners without octave double-stop on the subject of
Hungarian and Slovak folk songs (Könnyű zongoradarabok
kezdők részére oktávfogás nélkül magyar, és szlovák
népdalokra). Originally its four volumes contained 85 pieces,
which were later (1945) reduced to 79 pieces in two volumes.
The pieces in the collection are easy arrangements of folk songs.
Bartók used here 43 Slovak folk songs and melodies in total. He
derived them from his collection Slovak Folk Songs I and II, as
well as from the printed collections of other authors as follows:
Slovak Songs I (1880), Slovak Songs II (1890), Detva (K. A.
Medvecký, 1905), A Collection of Slovak Folk Songs, for middle
voice and piano accompaniment II (M. Sch. Trnavský, 1917). In
his instructive compositions from the third and fourth volumes
of the series For Children Bartók compositionally elaborated the
following folk songs:
Keby boli čerešne..., Kalina, malina.., Pod
lipkou..., Ej, Lado, Lado..., Lec
ela pava..., Stará baba zlá..., Keď
som išol z vojny..., Hej, na prešovskej turni..., Zabelej še,
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