András Wilheim
Bartók: The Creative Process
László Somfai: Béla Bartók. Composition, Concepts and Autograph Sources. Berkeley, University of California Press,1996, 344 pp.
[...]
The present book is based on the six Ernest Bloch lectures given by Somfai in September and October 1989 to the music faculty of the University of California in Berkeley. The text was ready for publication by the end of 1992, but a further four years elapsed before the book appeared. Clearly, the discussion that followed the lectures had to be incorporated in the main text with every assertion supported by a wealth of enlightening examples.
In spite of the huge amount of material on which the book relies - in-depth research into the New York and Budapest collections and Bartókiana in general - one cannot presume that, a handful of experts excepted, readers will really understand what the argument is about. Some will seek information about Bartók analogous to what they have obtained from similar works on other composers, most, however, will presumably be motivated by a general curiosity on the way composers function. They will not be disappointed. They are given an overview of the history of Bartók scholarship, and are introduced to Bartók's own declared opinions both about composition in general and about his own works.
The backbone of the book is given by Somfai's systematic account of every type of source connected with the genesis of the compositions. Thus, separate chapters are devoted to the sketches, fragments, and planned works which, for various reasons, remained unrealized. Somfai carefully differentiates between notes for works which were completed and notes for works which remained fragmentary of whose final form we know nothing, and draws our attention to essential differences between sources that are apparently similar.
Somfai discusses the manuscript paper used by Bartók in detail, showing how much research of this sort can help in clarifying chronological details. He gives examples showing Bartók's work phases on the way to completing a work and the point at which he considered a work to be complete. A typology and hierarchy of sources is given, showing that every type, from drafts to fair copies and proofs, right to corrected scores used in performance and the composer's own recordings, reveals new problems as it is positioned and has its role in the creative process, at the end of which stands the work in its final shape. In a chapter, Somfai deals with the connections between scholarship and performance, with his conclusions primarily drawn from Bartók's own recordings.
In an Appendix, he provides a complete list of sources that can be traced back to Bartók, in the order of the thematic catalogue in progress. In this sense the book is a truly comprehensive volume, as Somfai quite justifiably states in the Introduction: "My intention in this book is thus to summarize the results of nearly three decades of work, for the benefit of future Bartók studies."
[...]
András Wilheim
teaches composition at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Currently he is working on a thematic catalogue of György Kurtág's compositions and a book on John Cage.
