Bartók: 44 Duos for 2 Violins

[Martin Jonas]

Béla Bartók: 44 Duos for 2 Violins, Sz.98 (1931)

1. Necklied (Teasing Song) - 0:03
8. Slowakisches Lied 2 (Slowakian Song 2) - 0:57
6. Ungarisches Lied 1 (Hungarian Song 1) - 1:50
9. Spiel-Lied (Play Song) - 2:44
10. Ruthenisches Lied (Ruthenian Song) - 3:26
7. Wallachisches Lied (Walachian Song) - 4:26
5. Slowakisches Lied 1 (Slovakian Song 1) - 5:06
14. Polster-Tanz (Pillow Dance) - 5:59

This is a selection of Bartok's 44 Duos for two violins, played on two vintage Italian bowlback mandolins. The first four duos in my recording (Nos. 1, 8, 6, 9, in that order) form one of the concert sets proposed by Bartok, to which I have added four more of the earlier (and easier) duos. I think these work pretty well on mandolin, and they are really fun to play!

Mandolin 1: 1890s Umberto Ceccherini (right channel)
Mandolin 2: 1915 Luigi Embergher (left channel)

These musical miniatures (most are well under a minute) were intended by the composer as instructional material as well as performance pieces, and they have been extensively performed and recorded by professional violinists. My selections are all from relatively early in the collection -- they get more demanding, not so much in terms of technical difficulty as in rhythmic complexity. The most obvious one to translate to mandolins would be Duo 43, a pizzicato duet (i.e. violins trying to be mandolins). I'm working on that one, but the second violin rhythm is deceptively difficult -- watch this space!

Bartok died in 1945, and copyright in the EU expired in 2015, so his compositions are now in the public domain. IMSLP has very nice scans of the original editions of the 44 duos:

http://imslp.org/wiki/44_Duos_for_2_...%2C_B%C3%A9la)



Martin

[Jim Garber]

I always liked Bartók, one of my favorite composers, partly because of his interest in folk music. I played through a few of those duets.

[DavidKOS]

I always liked Bartók, one of my favorite composers, partly because of his interest in folk music. I played through a few of those duets.

same here...plus my college theory teacher was big on Bartok, which was fine with me!

[mandopops]

Agree on Bartok & his Duets. Besides the Bluegrass band I play with, I have a duo with a Guitarist. We get together once or twice a week. We like to play Bach to Scott Joplin & all points in between. We do like to mix it up & will pull out the Bartok book from time to time. We have a few we like to play. Our favorite is #22 The Mosquito Dance. It is a trippy little tune. We always crack ourselves up when we play it. Classical music can/should be fun.
A couple of years ago. I heard Perlman & Zuckerman in concert in Chicago. As part of their program, they played a batch of the Bartok duets. Quite fun.
Joe B