Because contemporary music experts are usually older than the ''Internet generation's'' musicians and youtubers. Though, there are a lot of books and articles on these subjects, they are from another era.
There are quite a few out there. Off the top of my head, you can check out e.g. Alan Belkin, Seth Monahan, and of course David Bruce who was the one that got me here in the first place. There's more, but it really depends on your definition of "like this". Some are more like this than others. Some focus on specific instruments, eras, or genres. Some, conversely, cover a wider variety of topics but not as deeply. It's difficult to think of a complete carbon copy or clone of Samuel, but then again diversity is a good thing in my book. With that out of the way, here's the thing. Putting a video like this one together is a surprising amount of work actually. It may look like nothing, but it's everything but. You can't just churn it out on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Maybe Samuel can, by now. But it takes time to learn the ins and outs of all the tools and processes involved. It's a trade in its own right. Now add into the equation that the target audience is really tiny. Just going through my list above, Seth Monahan has 5k subs. Alan Belkin is at 12k. David Bruce is at 90k, but it took him a full ten years to get there. Samuel has 23k, and it took him five. If you start from zero, you'll sit at zero for a really long time. Especially for niche topics like this. And you won't be making a single cent off it any time soon. You need to get to at least 1k subs, and build up an impressive library of tens of hours of content first. You won't see a single cent before that. And the figures you'll start seeing after that won't be too many orders of magnitude removed from a single cent, either. So it has to be a passion project. You can only do it as a hobby on the side. And - well, analyzing a Bartók quartet note by note just isn't that popular a hobby to begin with. And indeed only less so among people who're already doing it as part of their day job. In conclusion, I'm actually quite amazed that we have any channels like this one at all. Let alone dozens of them (again, depending on our definition of "like this"). And again, there might well be twenty carbon copies of Samuel out there right now. It's just that nobody has ever heard of them. It took me five years to find this one channel. Those five years that it took Samuel to get to 23k subs. He'll hit 100k eventually, but certainly not tomorrow. And 100k is still nothing in the grand scheme of things. I live in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere whose population is twice that. And you've never even heard its name. Now imagine how many RUclips channels with 1k subs are out there that you've never heard of. It's not that they don't exist. It's that we don't know that they do.
@@alex_evstyugov Thank you for your insightful analysis. My rate of growth at the moment is maybe 800 new subscribers per month. But that rate is increasing. And I'm happy to be reaching as many people as I am. It's an honour to be of service.
I am just thrilled that there are, as of 1/22/19, 14.5K views of this informative lecture on a very important 20th century composer. The fact that nearly 15, 000 people are interested in some or all of this lecture is a wonderful surprise. You're doing the heavy lifting, Mr. Andreyev, but it's your viewers building the muscle. Thank you!
Bartok is starting to become more popular through the years and I believe the reason is because younger music educators are more open minded people, plus the internet has helped too. When I was 16 in 1972 and heard the 5th movement on the college radio station, it changed my musical life but nobody I knew had ever heard of Bartok, even my music theory professor in college a few years later wasn't familiar with his work. Classical Music didn't really get interesting until Bartok, Stravinsky, Copeland, Schoenberg and others came along in the 20th century. And Samuel Andreyev doesn't limit himself to just classical music. He did an extensive analysis of the Rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and the album "Trout Mask Replica". He even interviewed all the musicians who played on that album, but unfortunately Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away years before. If you have not heard that album, please listen to it. There's nothing it can compare to.
Incredible analysis. Just discovered Bartok and I’m so pleased that you have done an analysis on his works. These compositions have stretched my imagination of what expressive capacity a string quartet can muster. Truly inspiring pieces. Thank you for this excellent deep dive!
Fantastic as always. The piano seperations are particularly helpful, aurally and visually. Bartok's quartets are often so densely voiced that it is hard to pick out what each instrument is doing. Thank you for applying your expertise and natural talent as a teacher to these amazing pieces of music.
I could listen to you talk about music all day... I'm not very well versed in music theory, but this helps me understand to some degree, or beginning to at least. I love your breakdown of the parts, I haven't had the chance to listen to the suggested rendition yet, but I will at some point tonight when stuff settles down. thank you for your passion in this. I'm getting to the point where I can donate monthly here shortly, I really want to support your videos getting even better (if possible) sorry I'm ramblin'
I return home from work, listening to Bartók's 4th on my headphones, and find this video waiting for me. What a treat! Thank you so much Samuel for taking the time and effort to make this, it has real worth and value for so many of us. There's only one real problem with it: it ends too soon! (that's not really a criticism, I can only guess at the complexity of the task of creating these videos, let alone one about a piece as dense as this). Thanks again and keep it up, looking forward to the next one!
It's simply an honor to be able to contribute in some manner. Thank you so much for writing. I agree that this one could have been longer, but at a certain point I have to stop -- I could talk about this piece for hours :)
Well let's just say that if you decide to return to this piece and topic in future, none of us would complain! thanks again for simply fantastic content.
What a wonderful composition! Amazing how Bartók extends tonality. In some bars in the first movement I get the impression of being surrounded by thousands of wasps.
Thanks . So glad this exists . Spent a happy Sunday looking at listening to Quartet No. 2 (much easier to get a grasp and to feel )- displacement is a simple notion . But when to use it . Things have meaning when tied to behavior and needs of music . Bartok is considered important and his influence is easily seen in Eotvos , Sessions , even Copland so I know I need to know how his music functions . His slow music is easily felt while the fast opening movements in Bartok I like to see the page but still don't always feel how all of it says something I readily apprehend like a Beethoven quartet or Symphony .
Great analysis of one of the finest pieces of music ever written by anyone, especially movement V. Allegro molto, which is a big inspiration for me as a composer and Progressive Rock, i.e. Robert Fripp of King Crimson and Keith Emerson of Emerson , Lake & Palmer, who's first track from their first album is the piano piece, Allegro Barbaro done as a trio with Hammond organ, electric bass and drums they called "The Barbarian". So if there are people from the classical music world who look down on Rock 'n Roll, there are some great musicians doing compelling music. People such as Leonard Bernstein and Alberto Ginastera were surprised at the talent of Keith Emerson who did a synthesizer version of Ginastera's Toccata Concertata .
Bartok is starting to become more popular through the years and I believe the reason is because younger music educators are more open minded people, plus the internet has helped too. When I was 16 in 1972 and heard the 5th movement on the college radio station, it changed my musical life but nobody I knew had ever heard of Bartok, even my music theory professor in college a few years later wasn't familiar with his work. Classical Music didn't really get interesting until Bartok, Stravinsky, Copeland, Schoenberg and others came along in the 20th century. And Samuel Andreyev doesn't limit himself to just classical music. He did an extensive analysis of the Rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and the album "Trout Mask Replica". He even interviewed all the musicians who played on that album, but unfortunately Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away years before. If you have not heard that album, please listen to it. There's nothing it can compare to.
I have just discovered your channel. Thank you for taking time to do this analysis. Looking forward for more videos coming from your channel. Keep up the great work.
Excellent! I’m already using your Pierrot Lunaire video in a music theory class I teach. Next time I teach the class, I’m going to start incorporating this one too.
I think some of the appeal of Bartok is that he does have the 'poles" like you said. I feel completely 12 tone music loses something. Even for the trained ear. I prefer some sort of harmonic background. It gives the listener something to hold on to. Something to relate to. It builds contrast. Which is important to life. Birds and bees. Lion and its prey. When all 12 tones have the same weight the music seems to weigh nothing. It can be exiting, like a roller coaster, but not memory forming. Just my opinion. Thanks for the great video!
I think this is true to a certain extent but it only pertains to a certain austere kind of 12 tone music. You can have textures, colours, rhythmic patterns, forms etc. which can act as sign posts for a listener to latch on to rather than just the harmony itself. I agree that it often can be hard though, but the same goes for atonal music or even just highly chromatic music. 12 tone stuff can indeed even be full of tonal references innit.
I'm skimming through the Bartok String Quartets as research for finishing a metal album on the recommendation of an old professor. Bartok generally throws in the kitchen sink in a quest for texture both melodic and harmonic. These are amazingly deep works and it goes to show that Andreyev could take a whole composition lesson explaining what amounts to the construction of one movement! They can be so complicated that the great Dr. Walter Piston screwed up his dissertation so badly on the 1st quartet, the under informed argument (and he had just died, and not so much of the ethnomusicology was there for public research of the time) became a work of art in its own right. Can't say enough good stuff about this analysis. This is really thorough and its a must if you are a string player looking to get a handle on what amounts to a really difficult performance piece. Andeyev has a really whole approach to the video essay and got in that important detail about how aware Bartok was in later life of his contemporaries, which completes my understanding of the work. And you see the contrast between the whole tone rows and octotonic scales as they function in the melody.
Thank you : heard B first 1961(?) at San Diego State with the Juillard (?) : experienced it but had no one like you to explain what I heard ; had heard the J in a recording at UCLA 1959 : your erudition (wow!) : but where can we listen/hear your compositions???
AAAAY a fellow slav, nice nice!!! I think you’d like the works by Schnittke (might i recommend the Concerto Grosso No 1?), and maybe also the American composer Lou Harrison!!
Hi Mate; …You should also be extremely proud of your country’s contribution to Music Education and Musicology both in Bartok’s and Zoltan Kodaly’s work.!!- take care.
This quartet has been a favorite since I first heard it in my late teens. I like following the score, but my limited acquaintance with common practice theory is of little use in making sense of what I'm seeing on the page. Your analysis is a giant step forward. This music means something to me and you've enriched its importance, for which I am very grateful.
long ago, friends were playing a coffee house gig and ran out of material. It was very informal so they agreed to play the Bartok again. On a lark, we asked them to play a movement faster. Faster - no - REALLY fast. It was like focusing a camera - everything began to sound east European - the curious little chromatic figures morphed into ornaments and the clashes of tonality, the asymetric rhythms sounded astonishingly like what you might hear at Folklife, accompanying dancers or something. I suppose invaders from central asia and so on brought a bit of the exotic to mix with the triadic oompah. Oh the Cumanity! There are some very old recordings of Hungarian music here on RUclips, and the harmonies and rhythm can get a bit interesting
Bartok completed several folk song collections with Zoltán Kodaly in the years before WWI. Bartok began the ethnomusicology department at the Liszt Academy which Kodaly took over when Bartok emigrated to the US. If you ask the Hungarians they consider Bartok as the greatest composer (even above Liszt) because his music is so influenced by the traditional folk song idiom. Liszt is regarded as being of the European tradition - although he did much to support the next generation by teaching and donating his house which became the first building of the Liszt Academy.
Repitition seems to in a way substitute for resolution just because it becomes a landmark or destination repeatedly arrived at? Stamped into our hearing.
I am Happy. This is the first of your programs sent to me. I studied music - the teaching was really poor and I studied on my own. Wonderful to continue my education in old age with your programs. I would so much like to support you financialy but at the moment I'm in need of financial support myself. As soon as I see the possibility I'll post some money.
No, I adopted my mother's name, de Villiers. She was a descendant of the French Huguenots. I love all things French and my translations into Italian of French poetry will appear soon in a book.While I am here, do you know a Canadian composer called Scott Good who is a close e-mail friend.? His music is quite different from yours but I love it all the same.
Hi, first of all congratulations for this fantastic channel. Bartok is my favourite composer but sometimes is quite difficult for me to understand his works. for example in these days i'm studying the SECOND STRING QUARTET(1917), and i have found chords like this: a triad C - Bb - E, followed by Db - F - A with Ab in the bass! I really don't know how to classify those chords! Can you help me?
So look I am stuck with this idea of a tonal nomans land (for lack of a better set of distinctions) between advanced tonal harmony and 12 tone music so I've lumped lots of stuff and composers into this bag. As a Jazz pianist I've experienced the phenomenon that this no-mans land is extremely hard to keep your footing in because the pull of tonality or free atonality is so strong that it is extremely difficult to occupy this ground without slipping either way; much less find whats compelling. So this program is frustrating for me. Ah good work I suppose.
Where do you see the role of the Futurist music of Luigi Russolo within the development of the Atonal or non root based, chromatic movement? Would you see the futuristic´s manifestation as random or a gimicky, Dadaist, tongue in cheek commentary on the contemporary music or his attempt to create automatic composition?
offisk dahl I don't see Russolo as having had any role at all in the development of composition. I see him as an offshoot of mainly pictorially based art movements, even though he worked with sound. I have however read and enjoyed his text on the art of noise.
Samuel Andreyev Oh I adore their recording of the 3rd movement. The Cello part is a little sharp some times but that gives so much more intensity to his 'night music' style.
Very interesting video. I feel like an in-depth analysis of almost any Bartok quartet would require about 20-30 hours of video! That said, I'm glad that your video isn't that long, as I'm currently knee-deep in trying to make sense of Myaskovsky's String Quartet no. 1.
I started getting concernzd about the length of the video when I realized that it was taking almost a half hour to adequately explain the first 3 or 4 bars.. ! So I've had to restrict it to a few carefully chosen examples.
Hi Samuel, after watching a few of your videos I noticed that there is often a let's call it "lip smacking" noise. I have heard a radio host talking about this phenomenon and he said that this can be avoided by taking a sip of water right before recording. Maybe you have noticed this sound as well. Thanks for your videos, I hope this that was helpful :-)
Luv ! This channel . why is Kurtag so important . I look at his work on the page and see only what is invisible too me . A page of Elliott Carter Messaen . Ligeti or Boulez , Stravinsky -almost everyone immediately thrusts its personality & originality at me . Like Webern there are small things present in the look of his pages and radical stuff happening historically , musically etc. I have no idea what Kurtag is about . Bartok said something that always stays with me . If ou can't see whats happening on my page - you don't really know what's happening in Beethoven . So ifyoure not a musicin and have some expertise in theory we are just humming tunes and sentimentally following .
I hope that once the global pandemic subsides and everything is back more or less to normal, you can get the psychiatric help you so clearly require. Ask your nurses what’s the deal with Kurtag, I’m sure they’ll humor you.
It would be nice if you would use more sound fragments when you explain the structure of a piece. For example for this, a cello player would have been great.
So this tonic dominant allegory is based on the whole tone scale (which is autistic i.e. incapable of resoulution). So this axial thing isn't in any way based on resolution just destination. It's a system to organize traffic flow in a sense?
Is it true that his music influenced the birth of heavy-metal indirectly? I know that Robert Fripp was influenced by him, even though that isn't quite metal.
Thank you for this. However, I came here because I needed an analysis of the third movement, so I'm afraid it didn't help me this time. Like someone suggested already, it would be nice for the title to be a little more accurate. But thanks anyway, amazing material and you make it very easy to understand.
Thanks for your comment. I'm always interested to receive requests, but please bear in mind that each video takes between 2-3 weeks to do, and I have to fit them into a very crowded schedule. Also I have a lot of composers to get to, so it may be a while before I can do second works by composers I've already covered. Best regards.
The information is good, but from an educational perspective, but too much talking, and not enough examples. Make a point, play example, point-example. Bring the video down to 24 minutes, 8 3 minutes sections Part 1, 2, 3, 4...etc...much better.
A funny thing is, the Hungarian way to read the sign/letter (a double sign actually) _sz_ is "S" and Polish is "Sh". However, Hungarian _s_ is pron. as "Sh". What strange people are they... ;)
Contrary motion is not a contrapuntual technique... if anything its the fundamental idea for counterpoint itself. Suggestion: The video should be really named "An overview of the first movement of Bartóks String Quartet No. 4".
Why don't more channels like this exist?
Chris Kronkle check out the channel “Richard Atkinson”
Because contemporary music experts are usually older than the ''Internet generation's'' musicians and youtubers. Though, there are a lot of books and articles on these subjects, they are from another era.
There are quite a few out there. Off the top of my head, you can check out e.g. Alan Belkin, Seth Monahan, and of course David Bruce who was the one that got me here in the first place.
There's more, but it really depends on your definition of "like this". Some are more like this than others. Some focus on specific instruments, eras, or genres. Some, conversely, cover a wider variety of topics but not as deeply. It's difficult to think of a complete carbon copy or clone of Samuel, but then again diversity is a good thing in my book.
With that out of the way, here's the thing.
Putting a video like this one together is a surprising amount of work actually. It may look like nothing, but it's everything but. You can't just churn it out on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Maybe Samuel can, by now. But it takes time to learn the ins and outs of all the tools and processes involved. It's a trade in its own right.
Now add into the equation that the target audience is really tiny. Just going through my list above, Seth Monahan has 5k subs. Alan Belkin is at 12k. David Bruce is at 90k, but it took him a full ten years to get there. Samuel has 23k, and it took him five.
If you start from zero, you'll sit at zero for a really long time. Especially for niche topics like this. And you won't be making a single cent off it any time soon.
You need to get to at least 1k subs, and build up an impressive library of tens of hours of content first. You won't see a single cent before that. And the figures you'll start seeing after that won't be too many orders of magnitude removed from a single cent, either.
So it has to be a passion project. You can only do it as a hobby on the side. And - well, analyzing a Bartók quartet note by note just isn't that popular a hobby to begin with. And indeed only less so among people who're already doing it as part of their day job.
In conclusion, I'm actually quite amazed that we have any channels like this one at all. Let alone dozens of them (again, depending on our definition of "like this").
And again, there might well be twenty carbon copies of Samuel out there right now. It's just that nobody has ever heard of them.
It took me five years to find this one channel. Those five years that it took Samuel to get to 23k subs. He'll hit 100k eventually, but certainly not tomorrow. And 100k is still nothing in the grand scheme of things. I live in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere whose population is twice that. And you've never even heard its name. Now imagine how many RUclips channels with 1k subs are out there that you've never heard of.
It's not that they don't exist. It's that we don't know that they do.
@@alex_evstyugov Thank you for your insightful analysis. My rate of growth at the moment is maybe 800 new subscribers per month. But that rate is increasing. And I'm happy to be reaching as many people as I am. It's an honour to be of service.
David Hurwitz videos are very informative.
I am just thrilled that there are, as of 1/22/19, 14.5K views of this informative lecture on a very important 20th century composer. The fact that nearly 15, 000 people are interested in some or all of this lecture is a wonderful surprise. You're doing the heavy lifting, Mr. Andreyev, but it's your viewers building the muscle. Thank you!
Hi, I'm here because I'm in a music appreciation class and this is part of the homework that's been assigned.
Nearly 50k now
Bartok is starting to become more popular through the years and I believe the reason is because younger music educators are more open minded people, plus the internet has helped too. When I was 16 in 1972 and heard the 5th movement on the college radio station, it changed my musical life but nobody I knew had ever heard of Bartok, even my music theory professor in college a few years later wasn't familiar with his work. Classical Music didn't really get interesting until Bartok, Stravinsky, Copeland, Schoenberg and others came along in the 20th century. And Samuel Andreyev doesn't limit himself to just classical music. He did an extensive analysis of the Rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and the album "Trout Mask Replica". He even interviewed all the musicians who played on that album, but unfortunately Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away years before. If you have not heard that album, please listen to it. There's nothing it can compare to.
@@andragg I’m here because I’m a metal head…
I agree. It also means the levels are high and all of us composers have more competition.
Incredible analysis.
Just discovered Bartok and I’m so pleased that you have done an analysis on his works. These compositions have stretched my imagination of what expressive capacity a string quartet can muster. Truly inspiring pieces. Thank you for this excellent deep dive!
I am a string player myself and fall on my knees before this masterpiece!! And your analysis is amazing - as usual:) thank you!!
Fantastic as always. The piano seperations are particularly helpful, aurally and visually. Bartok's quartets are often so densely voiced that it is hard to pick out what each instrument is doing. Thank you for applying your expertise and natural talent as a teacher to these amazing pieces of music.
yaarge2 Thank you. This one was particularly difficult to do. Bartók's music is not easy to parse..
Can't tell you how valuable this is, and how refreshing it is to see such in-depth, high quality content on one of my favorite quartets. Thank you.
I could listen to you talk about music all day...
I'm not very well versed in music theory, but this helps me understand to some degree, or beginning to at least. I love your breakdown of the parts, I haven't had the chance to listen to the suggested rendition yet, but I will at some point tonight when stuff settles down. thank you for your passion in this. I'm getting to the point where I can donate monthly here shortly, I really want to support your videos getting even better (if possible) sorry I'm ramblin'
I've struck gold with finding this channel. Keep up the good work
I return home from work, listening to Bartók's 4th on my headphones, and find this video waiting for me. What a treat! Thank you so much Samuel for taking the time and effort to make this, it has real worth and value for so many of us. There's only one real problem with it: it ends too soon! (that's not really a criticism, I can only guess at the complexity of the task of creating these videos, let alone one about a piece as dense as this). Thanks again and keep it up, looking forward to the next one!
It's simply an honor to be able to contribute in some manner. Thank you so much for writing. I agree that this one could have been longer, but at a certain point I have to stop -- I could talk about this piece for hours :)
Well let's just say that if you decide to return to this piece and topic in future, none of us would complain! thanks again for simply fantastic content.
Very informative, I feel like I now know better a piece I've loved for years. Thanks!
What a wonderful composition! Amazing how Bartók extends tonality. In some bars in the first movement I get the impression of being surrounded by thousands of wasps.
In some of Bartok’s orchestral music there are movements of night music with eerie insect-like nocturnal sounds.
It's officially 4318 wasps
You can hear Bartok's influence on Frank Zappa in this quartet in particular. Thank you for this analysis. I love learning from you.
Thanks . So glad this exists . Spent a happy Sunday looking at listening to Quartet No. 2 (much easier to get a grasp and to feel )- displacement is a simple notion . But when to use it . Things have meaning when tied to behavior and needs of music . Bartok is considered important and his influence is easily seen in Eotvos , Sessions , even Copland so I know I need to know how his music functions . His slow music is easily felt while the fast opening movements in Bartok I like to see the page but still don't always feel how all of it says something I readily apprehend like a Beethoven quartet or Symphony .
Great analysis of one of the finest pieces of music ever written by anyone, especially movement V. Allegro molto, which is a big inspiration for me as a composer and Progressive Rock, i.e. Robert Fripp of King Crimson and Keith Emerson of Emerson , Lake & Palmer, who's first track from their first album is the piano piece, Allegro Barbaro done as a trio with Hammond organ, electric bass and drums they called "The Barbarian". So if there are people from the classical music world who look down on Rock 'n Roll, there are some great musicians doing compelling music. People such as Leonard Bernstein and Alberto Ginastera were surprised at the talent of Keith Emerson who did a synthesizer version of Ginastera's Toccata Concertata .
Thanks so much for this video. I really like the way you summary the harmonic progression in to a harmonic sketch.
Great analysis, of this extraordinary work . Thanks
Bartok is starting to become more popular through the years and I believe the reason is because younger music educators are more open minded people, plus the internet has helped too. When I was 16 in 1972 and heard the 5th movement on the college radio station, it changed my musical life but nobody I knew had ever heard of Bartok, even my music theory professor in college a few years later wasn't familiar with his work. Classical Music didn't really get interesting until Bartok, Stravinsky, Copeland, Schoenberg and others came along in the 20th century. And Samuel Andreyev doesn't limit himself to just classical music. He did an extensive analysis of the Rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and the album "Trout Mask Replica". He even interviewed all the musicians who played on that album, but unfortunately Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away years before. If you have not heard that album, please listen to it. There's nothing it can compare to.
A very clear exposition of Bartok's techniques.
What a wonderful and educational analysis, especially for composers to watch.
I think both Bartok and Stravinsky are modal composers..rather than staying in a particular key, they are moving modally.
I would love to hear the last 5th movement orchestrated for a chamber ensemble, similar to what was done to Shostakovich’s 8th string quartet.
An excellent guide through a very favorite piece. Where can I find the rest of your analysis? Thank you for your work.
Fifht movement of this quartet inspired the metal generations to come
I have just discovered your channel. Thank you for taking time to do this analysis. Looking forward for more videos coming from your channel. Keep up the great work.
Thank you! More videos are on the way soon.
It's mentioned by Woody Allen in "Play it again Sam" as a way of impressing a dame with your culture.
Outstanding analysis.
You are making musicology great again-thanks bigly!
Crystal-clear and simply fantastic. Definitely earned a sub.
Excellent! I’m already using your Pierrot Lunaire video in a music theory class I teach. Next time I teach the class, I’m going to start incorporating this one too.
Glad it's helpful!
I think some of the appeal of Bartok is that he does have the 'poles" like you said. I feel completely 12 tone music loses something. Even for the trained ear. I prefer some sort of harmonic background. It gives the listener something to hold on to. Something to relate to. It builds contrast. Which is important to life. Birds and bees. Lion and its prey. When all 12 tones have the same weight the music seems to weigh nothing. It can be exiting, like a roller coaster, but not memory forming. Just my opinion. Thanks for the great video!
I think this is true to a certain extent but it only pertains to a certain austere kind of 12 tone music. You can have textures, colours, rhythmic patterns, forms etc. which can act as sign posts for a listener to latch on to rather than just the harmony itself. I agree that it often can be hard though, but the same goes for atonal music or even just highly chromatic music.
12 tone stuff can indeed even be full of tonal references innit.
I'm skimming through the Bartok String Quartets as research for finishing a metal album on the recommendation of an old professor. Bartok generally throws in the kitchen sink in a quest for texture both melodic and harmonic. These are amazingly deep works and it goes to show that Andreyev could take a whole composition lesson explaining what amounts to the construction of one movement! They can be so complicated that the great Dr. Walter Piston screwed up his dissertation so badly on the 1st quartet, the under informed argument (and he had just died, and not so much of the ethnomusicology was there for public research of the time) became a work of art in its own right.
Can't say enough good stuff about this analysis. This is really thorough and its a must if you are a string player looking to get a handle on what amounts to a really difficult performance piece. Andeyev has a really whole approach to the video essay and got in that important detail about how aware Bartok was in later life of his contemporaries, which completes my understanding of the work. And you see the contrast between the whole tone rows and octotonic scales as they function in the melody.
The intermediary section of the exposition uses both modes of the octatonic scale simultaneously, one in the cello and the other in the viola.
Thank you : heard B first 1961(?) at San Diego State with the Juillard (?) : experienced it but had no one like you to explain what I heard ; had heard the J in a recording at UCLA 1959 : your erudition (wow!) : but where can we listen/hear your compositions???
Excellent!!! I love your channel
A sublime composer. Stunning.
Superb piece of music.
Great video!! I just recoded my 1st string quartet!! Subscribed!!
I just found your channel, your work is very interesting and pleasant to watch, keep it up !
Bartók is the best, I love him so much. Main reason to be a proud Hungarian.
AAAAY a fellow slav, nice nice!!! I think you’d like the works by Schnittke (might i recommend the Concerto Grosso No 1?), and maybe also the American composer Lou Harrison!!
Hope ur doing well buddy!!! Stay safe :)
Hi Mate; …You should also be extremely proud of your country’s contribution to Music Education and Musicology both in Bartok’s and Zoltan Kodaly’s work.!!- take care.
Super! I was looking forward to this
This quartet has been a favorite since I first heard it in my late teens. I like following the score, but my limited acquaintance with common practice theory is of little use in making sense of what I'm seeing on the page. Your analysis is a giant step forward.
This music means something to me and you've enriched its importance, for which I am very grateful.
I'm really thrilled to hear that -- thanks for writing!
long ago, friends were playing a coffee house gig and ran out of material. It was very informal so they agreed to play the Bartok again. On a lark, we asked them to play a movement faster. Faster - no - REALLY fast. It was like focusing a camera - everything began to sound east European - the curious little chromatic figures morphed into ornaments and the clashes of tonality, the asymetric rhythms sounded astonishingly like what you might hear at Folklife, accompanying dancers or something. I suppose invaders from central asia and so on brought a bit of the exotic to mix with the triadic oompah. Oh the Cumanity! There are some very old recordings of Hungarian music here on RUclips, and the harmonies and rhythm can get a bit interesting
Thanks, Samuel. It's a very interesting approach for a very beautiful piece!
Maryson Borges Great to hear from you Maryson. Glad you enjoyed the video ! Bis später !
Bartok completed several folk song collections with Zoltán Kodaly in the years before WWI. Bartok began the ethnomusicology department at the Liszt Academy which Kodaly took over when Bartok emigrated to the US. If you ask the Hungarians they consider Bartok as the greatest composer (even above Liszt) because his music is so influenced by the traditional folk song idiom. Liszt is regarded as being of the European tradition - although he did much to support the next generation by teaching and donating his house which became the first building of the Liszt Academy.
Repitition seems to in a way substitute for resolution just because it becomes a landmark or destination repeatedly arrived at? Stamped into our hearing.
very good indeed, thank you!
Someone needs to make a Metal Version of the 5th movement of that string quartet...
It already is metal
Oh no,, don't get me wrong, I love metal, but please no more metal versions of classical and modern art music. It falls flat each and every time.
King Crimson already did. Well, sort of. Check out "Lark's tounge in aspic pt. 1 & 2", Level 5, Fracture and Frakctured
Fracture isn't as "heavy" as the others, but is still bartok-ish.
@@sneddypie This piece was on radio in an office I shared in the '90s; my colleague's immediate reaction was "This is Heavy Metal"!
This is excellent!
Great video, very interesting.
Great analysis. Thanks!
Measure 14 seems to begin a canon on the theme of a squeaky wheel, following a venerable traditional topus.
Thank you for making this video!!!!! Can't say how much this is helping for my pre-quals at UNT!
Something about bartok's music strikes me as incredibly rock n roll. Totally a subjective take
I am Happy. This is the first of your programs sent to me. I studied music - the teaching was really poor and I studied on my own. Wonderful to continue my education in old age with your programs. I would so much like to support you financialy but at the moment I'm in need of financial support myself. As soon as I see the possibility I'll post some money.
Felix de Villiers You have a French name, are you a francophone? Glad to hear my videos have been helpful to you.
No, I adopted my mother's name, de Villiers. She was a descendant of the French Huguenots. I love all things French and my translations into Italian of French poetry will appear soon in a book.While I am here, do you know a Canadian composer called Scott Good who is a close e-mail friend.? His music is quite different from yours but I love it all the same.
Excellent! Thank you
Your channel is awesome!!!
I. Love. This.
Hello, do you have any video explaining or talking about Bernard Herman style?
woaa thank you so much for this video !
Brilliant analysis. I just don't get, if the whole tone pitches between C-F# are tonic and between Eb-A are dominant, how does Bb-E serve as tonic?
Hi, first of all congratulations for this fantastic channel. Bartok is my favourite composer but sometimes is quite difficult for me to understand his works. for example in these days i'm studying the SECOND STRING QUARTET(1917), and i have found chords like this: a triad C - Bb - E, followed by Db - F - A with Ab in the bass! I really don't know how to classify those chords! Can you help me?
This is brilliant
Great
What's the piece at the end? With bass clarinet, flute etc. It sounds really good, and quite similar to the Bartók in some ways.
That's my piece Strasbourg Quartet, available on the disc 'Music with no Edges' from Kairos Records (also on Spotify, etc)
@@samuel_andreyev Great I'll check it out.
thanks for a wonderful analysis. what is the composition in the outtro section of the video (at 38:09ish)?
That’s my piece ‘Strasbourg Quartet’. You can find it on Spotify etc
So who was creatively using the idea of actual tonal resolution or partial resolution in an extended modern way? Ginistera?
Currently practising his second violin concerto...I think it's the greatest violin concerto in the 20th century, could you analyze it?
So look I am stuck with this idea of a tonal nomans land (for lack of a better set of distinctions) between advanced tonal harmony and 12 tone music so I've lumped lots of stuff and composers into this bag. As a Jazz pianist I've experienced the phenomenon that this no-mans land is extremely hard to keep your footing in because the pull of tonality or free atonality is so strong that it is extremely difficult to occupy this ground without slipping either way; much less find whats compelling. So this program is frustrating for me. Ah good work I suppose.
Where do you see the role of the Futurist music of Luigi Russolo within the development of the Atonal or non root based, chromatic movement? Would you see the futuristic´s manifestation as random or a gimicky, Dadaist, tongue in cheek commentary on the contemporary music or his attempt to create automatic composition?
offisk dahl I don't see Russolo as having had any role at all in the development of composition. I see him as an offshoot of mainly pictorially based art movements, even though he worked with sound. I have however read and enjoyed his text on the art of noise.
What is your favourite recording of each movement?
HanBurritoz The Hungarian String Quartet -- and that's the version I used for the examples.
Samuel Andreyev Oh I adore their recording of the 3rd movement. The Cello part is a little sharp some times but that gives so much more intensity to his 'night music' style.
Thank You!
Excellent analysis, thank you for sharing!
Flavio Romanelli You're most welcome. Thank you for writing.
Very interesting video. I feel like an in-depth analysis of almost any Bartok quartet would require about 20-30 hours of video! That said, I'm glad that your video isn't that long, as I'm currently knee-deep in trying to make sense of Myaskovsky's String Quartet no. 1.
I started getting concernzd about the length of the video when I realized that it was taking almost a half hour to adequately explain the first 3 or 4 bars.. ! So I've had to restrict it to a few carefully chosen examples.
how do i reference this video in MLA for a paper i'm writing lols (not a real question but actually a real question)
Yeah!!!
OH MY GOD!
John Appleseed Try to stay calm :)
Awesome video, thanks :))) One of my favorite string quartets
Me too.. in fact this was one of the first pieces of 'modern' music I discovered as a teenager. So I have a certain debt towards Bartók.
John Appleseed hey john whats up i see you everywhere on videos like this i love you so much
wow, very nice!
Hi Samuel, after watching a few of your videos I noticed that there is often a let's call it "lip smacking" noise. I have heard a radio host talking about this phenomenon and he said that this can be avoided by taking a sip of water right before recording. Maybe you have noticed this sound as well. Thanks for your videos, I hope this that was helpful :-)
Rite of spring vibes
Could I get some information about the closing music? Is it yours? so cool
Yes, it’s my piece ‘Strasbourg Quartet’
Luv ! This channel . why is Kurtag so important . I look at his work on the page and see only what is invisible too me . A page of Elliott Carter Messaen . Ligeti or Boulez , Stravinsky -almost everyone immediately thrusts its personality & originality at me . Like Webern there are small things present in the look of his pages and radical stuff happening historically , musically etc. I have no idea what Kurtag is about . Bartok said something that always stays with me . If ou can't see whats happening on my page - you don't really know what's happening in Beethoven . So ifyoure not a musicin and have some expertise in theory we are just humming tunes and sentimentally following .
Why do you put two spaces between every word ?
(Sorry...😂)
I hope that once the global pandemic subsides and everything is back more or less to normal, you can get the psychiatric help you so clearly require. Ask your nurses what’s the deal with Kurtag, I’m sure they’ll humor you.
It would be nice if you would use more sound fragments when you explain the structure of a piece. For example for this, a cello player would have been great.
So this tonic dominant allegory is based on the whole tone scale (which is autistic i.e. incapable of resoulution). So this axial thing isn't in any way based on resolution just destination. It's a system to organize traffic flow in a sense?
Never heard that definition of autistic before
Is it true that his music influenced the birth of heavy-metal indirectly? I know that Robert Fripp was influenced by him, even though that isn't quite metal.
What is the piece you played at the ending of the video?
This is awesome! Radiohead, please!
Moving away from the theory chat, but are there particular recordings that make this quartet speak more to you than others?
Gonna be tuning into this one. Jordan Peterson's channel sent me here.
Thank you for this. However, I came here because I needed an analysis of the third movement, so I'm afraid it didn't help me this time. Like someone suggested already, it would be nice for the title to be a little more accurate. But thanks anyway, amazing material and you make it very easy to understand.
That was very informative! Could you analyse Bartok's 5th quartet please
Thanks for your comment. I'm always interested to receive requests, but please bear in mind that each video takes between 2-3 weeks to do, and I have to fit them into a very crowded schedule. Also I have a lot of composers to get to, so it may be a while before I can do second works by composers I've already covered. Best regards.
Thank you so much. Thanks to you i've discovered even more things in this piece that i've missed previously
I liked this video before I watched a second of it.
20:41
Just to remember where i djd stop
Sweet 8)
I feel like I should've paid for this
could you do an analysis of Gyorgy Ligeti's double concerto? that would be very interesting
Ligeti is perhaps the composer for whom I've had the most requests. I will certainly do a video in the next few months. Thanks for writing.
The information is good, but from an educational perspective, but too much talking, and not enough examples. Make a point, play example, point-example. Bring the video down to 24 minutes, 8 3 minutes sections Part 1, 2, 3, 4...etc...much better.
Why dont you make a video on "understanding Bartok" instead of just reviewing one of his pieces?
You should pronounce Karol's name "Shymanowski" ;)
katja niklas Thanks for letting me know :)
A funny thing is, the Hungarian way to read the sign/letter (a double sign actually) _sz_ is "S" and Polish is "Sh". However, Hungarian _s_ is pron. as "Sh". What strange people are they... ;)
Contrary motion is not a contrapuntual technique... if anything its the fundamental idea for counterpoint itself.
Suggestion: The video should be really named "An overview of the first movement of Bartóks String Quartet No. 4".
dont this guy like 19th and 18th century music?