Bartok is for me the greatest composer of the 20th century and the three piano concertos are among my all time favourites. Especially the second piano concerto is pure genius.
My feelings exactly! At or beyond the level of the concerti are, perhaps, his string quartets. I came to these, or they came to me (Vegh Quartet on Angel, through a kind record shop owner) 64 years ago, when I was 14; and somehow for all there dissonance and newness (to me at the time, though I already knew and loved The Rite of Spring), I knew at once that in each, as in the concerti, not a note is wrong, that is, out of place or unnecessary.
That doesn't say much about his later life though. Poulenc for example was raised a Roman Catholic, then he became an atheist in his 20s, then in his 30s he had a deep spiritual experience and found new faith in God and composed a lot of religious pieces, for mixed choir for example - Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël etc. Rachmaninov for example wasn't really a practicing Christian, but believed in God his all life and even wished they would sing the 5th movement of his All Night Vigil at his funeral - that 5th movement is the Canticle of Simeon "Nunc dimittis" or Now lettest thou depart thy servant. Just saying everyone's life is ever evolving and our beliefs are too.
From Wikipedia: Raised as a Roman Catholic, by his early adulthood Bartók had become an atheist. He believed that the existence of God could not be determined and was unnecessary. He later became attracted to Unitarianism and publicly converted to the Unitarian faith in 1916. As an adult, his son later became president of the Hungarian Unitarian Church (Hughes 1999-2007).
I'm beginning to think that labels (and words generally) are meaningless - or at least restrictive. Claiming to be sure that "God" (whatever "God" is) does not exist and saying that the existence of God couldn't be determined (or proved) and is unnecessary are two different things. The later is more in the "agnostic" category (another label). Vaughan Williams reportedly was a staunch atheist earlier in his life but then determined that he really was agnostic. But even so, he has written some of the most transcendent music every composed, and was active in the Anglican Church in compiling their hymnal and harmonizing hymn tunes that subequently became a part of it - and his setting of Pilgrim's Progress, an opera (although often done as oratorio) is one of his masterpieces. So being not being Roman Catholic doesn't mean Bartok is an atheist, even if he thinks it does. That stance may have just been a reaction to his Catholic upbringing. It would seem like not accepting the Catholic faith made one an atheist. And Unitarianism is definitely an alternative to such views.
About the 3rd concerto: the second movement's title (adagio religioso) came from Tibor Serly, who completed the score that Bartók had left slightly unfinished. See the German language Wikipedia article on this concerto (I wish I had another source to corroborate this point).
Bartok was an atheist at some point, but I hear he converted to Unitarianism later? Other great non-religious composers: Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Rubinstein, Sergei Prokofiev, Johannes Brahms, Hector Berlioz, Ferruccio Busoni, Georges Bizet, Maurice Ravel, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Dmitri Shostakovich, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. Maybe Schiff doesn't know of many atheist great composers because he mainly focuses on the era where atheism was so uncommon.
I don't recognise a difference between agnosticism and atheism. Both don't believe in god. But I said "non-religious composers" rather than atheist/agnostic composers for a reason. Sometimes it can be difficult to properly discern what the composer's actual beliefs were. Schubert apparently also had some crises of faith despite his large body of religious music.
You omitted probably the two greatest composers post Darwin & Nietzsche: Debussy and Stravinsky. Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, too. And Ligeti, for many the most important composer of the second half of the 20th century.
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Bartok is for me the greatest composer of the 20th century and the three piano concertos are among my all time favourites. Especially the second piano concerto is pure genius.
My feelings exactly! At or beyond the level of the concerti are, perhaps, his string quartets. I came to these, or they came to me (Vegh Quartet on Angel, through a kind record shop owner) 64 years ago, when I was 14; and somehow for all there dissonance and newness (to me at the time, though I already knew and loved The Rite of Spring), I knew at once that in each, as in the concerti, not a note is wrong, that is, out of place or unnecessary.
"By the time I had completed my 22nd year, I was a new man- an atheist"
- Bela Bartok
That doesn't say much about his later life though. Poulenc for example was raised a Roman Catholic, then he became an atheist in his 20s, then in his 30s he had a deep spiritual experience and found new faith in God and composed a lot of religious pieces, for mixed choir for example - Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël etc. Rachmaninov for example wasn't really a practicing Christian, but believed in God his all life and even wished they would sing the 5th movement of his All Night Vigil at his funeral - that 5th movement is the Canticle of Simeon "Nunc dimittis" or Now lettest thou depart thy servant.
Just saying everyone's life is ever evolving and our beliefs are too.
Bach says hi
From Wikipedia:
Raised as a Roman Catholic, by his early adulthood Bartók had become an atheist. He believed that the existence of God could not be determined and was unnecessary. He later became attracted to Unitarianism and publicly converted to the Unitarian faith in 1916. As an adult, his son later became president of the Hungarian Unitarian Church (Hughes 1999-2007).
I'm beginning to think that labels (and words generally) are meaningless - or at least restrictive. Claiming to be sure that "God" (whatever "God" is) does not exist and saying that the existence of God couldn't be determined (or proved) and is unnecessary are two different things. The later is more in the "agnostic" category (another label).
Vaughan Williams reportedly was a staunch atheist earlier in his life but then determined that he really was agnostic. But even so, he has written some of the most transcendent music every composed, and was active in the Anglican Church in compiling their hymnal and harmonizing hymn tunes that subequently became a part of it - and his setting of Pilgrim's Progress, an opera (although often done as oratorio) is one of his masterpieces.
So being not being Roman Catholic doesn't mean Bartok is an atheist, even if he thinks it does. That stance may have just been a reaction to his Catholic upbringing. It would seem like not accepting the Catholic faith made one an atheist.
And Unitarianism is definitely an alternative to such views.
About the 3rd concerto: the second movement's title (adagio religioso) came from Tibor Serly, who completed the score that Bartók had left slightly unfinished. See the German language Wikipedia article on this concerto (I wish I had another source to corroborate this point).
interesting!
Bartok was an atheist at some point, but I hear he converted to Unitarianism later?
Other great non-religious composers: Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Rubinstein, Sergei Prokofiev, Johannes Brahms, Hector Berlioz, Ferruccio Busoni, Georges Bizet, Maurice Ravel, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Dmitri Shostakovich, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. Maybe Schiff doesn't know of many atheist great composers because he mainly focuses on the era where atheism was so uncommon.
I don't recognise a difference between agnosticism and atheism. Both don't believe in god. But I said "non-religious composers" rather than atheist/agnostic composers for a reason. Sometimes it can be difficult to properly discern what the composer's actual beliefs were. Schubert apparently also had some crises of faith despite his large body of religious music.
You omitted probably the two greatest composers post Darwin & Nietzsche: Debussy and Stravinsky. Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, too. And Ligeti, for many the most important composer of the second half of the 20th century.