László Vikárius

Bartók, Kodály and Salome

 

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Thus the idea of publishing a series of Hungarian folksong arrangements may have arisen at Bartók and Kodály's discussion of Kodály's collection in early January. Yet it was not only folksong that occupied Bartók's musical imagination at that time. In a letter written on Christmas Eve 1905 to Emma Gruber, Bartók confided his unabated enthusiasm for Richard Strauss. Bartók exuberantly discusses his new discovery, Salome: I have vowed never to mention the Master in Budapest unless the opinion of the general public changes. My vow, however, does not prohibit expressing in writing the absolutely overwhelming effect Salome made on me. Last week I started to study the piano reduction- and I was unable to put the work aside before playing it completely through. Apart from Zarathustra, this is Strauss's most splendid work. At last, a new opera has been produced after Wagner! I truly hope that the piece is going to enjoy huge public success everywhere. What a great idea it was to choose a text exactly like this! You know it, don't you?1 Bartók's solemn tone bespeaks genuine admiration. For him the composer of Zarathustra was thus transformed into the composer of Salome, and so he described him in an interview in 1918.2 But what concerns us here is something more particular. For it is in Salome that we may hope to find some new clue for Bartók's interest in selecting "Ucca, ucca" for the 1906 Hungarian Folk Songs. In the opera's musical dramaturgy, motifs employing the minor-third interval are of overriding importance. One of the leitmotivs, which, played on trumpets and trombones, first appears in the "Dance of the Seven Veils," involves a significant minor third (see Ex. 4a).3 Out of this motif repeated minor thirds evolve within the dance itself (see Ex. 4b). But minor thirds can also be found elsewhere. During the opera, Salome expresses her request for Jochanaan's head eight times in all.

On the second of these occasions, the minor third becomes prominent in her part (see Ex. 4c). Salome employs more and more frequently, and in a more and more pressing manner, the motif taken from the music of her dance, making it musically explicit that her earlier compliance with Herodes's request entitles her to have her wish fulfilled (see Ex. 4d). The E flat-G flat-E flat minor third receives prominent treatment while Jochanaan is being murdered. While Salome anxiously waits, the motif gradually permeates the musical texture until the music becomes reduced to a constant repetition of minorthird leaps (see Ex. 4e). A final gesture yet again involving the minor third is, however, preserved for the closing bars. At the end of the opera, the chromatic drum motif on the timpani is framed by a minor third interval, C and E flat. The piece itself ends with minor third leaps hammered out with gradually diminishing frequency (see Ex. 4f). Thus, the minor third as a basic interval of leitmotivic significance connects the events in the opera from the "Dance of the Seven Veils" to Salome's death. It signals the relationship between erotic and perverted desire and, eventually, death. The rhythmic thinning out of the minor third leaps at the end of the opera might be seen as the musical representation of her slowing heartbeats as she dies. In hindsight, the ever more frequent repetition of the motif during the murder scene might also be interpreted as representing her own growing excitement. There remains little doubt that Salome was a milestone in Bartók's understanding of the expressive and emotional possibilities inherent in the recurring, even repetitive, use of minor thirds. The inspiration from Strauss would explain why Bartók, ignoring Kodály's reservations about the song's origin, so eagerly selected "Ucca, ucca", whose most important element is the repeated minor-third leap. Although the arrangement provided relatively modest compositional possibilities, this was the first time-as, I think, Kodály correctly pointed out-that he could experiment with this interval when making a number of decisions on tempo, character, tonality and dynamics.

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Other, stylistically less significant, elements found their way from Strauss's Salome, and partly Elektra, into Bartók's only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle. The best-known leitmotiv, Judith's "Kékszakállú" ("Bluebeard") motif, seems to carry strong associations with motifs sung when names (especially Jochanaan's name) are uttered in Salome (see Ex. 7). Example 7 Strauss, Salome, before 298 The trill in the last example, an effect that appears also in Elektra, must have served as an important model for shaping the central, ever-recurring "Blood motif" in Bartók's opera. These parallels between stylistic elements in Strauss's operas and Bartók's music confirm the hypothesis that Salome was indeed one of the main inspirations prompting Bartók to enrich his vocabulary with the minor third as a basic interval for thematic ideas and gestures. It is interesting that in his discussion of Bartók's predilection for the minor third, Kodály does not appear to have realized its possible connection with Strauss. Given his rather unsympathetic view of Strauss's music, one will not be surprised that he should have hesitated to consider Strauss as a model for such a crucial stylistic element in Bartók's music as the minor third motifs turned out to be. Kodály himself became acquainted with Salome in early 1907, little more than a year after Bartók. The opera, which inspired enthusiastic exuberance from Bartók in late 1905, did not seem to touch Kodály's heart at all. This is how he reported his new experience in Berlin to the same Emma Gruber: Yesterday: Salome. Interesting, interesting (in particular: it is not so overorchestrated, somewhat more refined) often boring, empty, sometimes

annoying, almost always sophisticated, a series of "little effects" without any grand effect. After it I don't feel anything special: whether you've come from drinking, or from anywhere or from Sal[ome] makes no difference. Although I do listen to Str[auss] with the interest of an explorer; I always want to discover new sources of pleasure for myself.4 And yet, Kodály did make the connection between Bartók's minor third and Strauss's opera. On a piece of paper bearing notes for his above-quoted lecture, "Szentirmaytól Bartókig" (From Szentirmay to Bartók), he scribbled: "Salome's Dance, Cheremis Song!"5 Kodály was particularly interested in the folk music of the Cheremis (Mari) people, whose language is Finno- Ugric and who have had historical connections with Turkish peoples. In both of these respects, the Cheremis have been seen as akin to Hungarians. Since the two peoples could not have had cultural links for more than a thousand years, any discovered affinities between their respective folk music traditions promise historical insights of immense significance. Although Bartók was familiar with selected early recordings of Cheremis songs, more systematic research was only carried out after his death. Significantly, in the final text of his lecture, Kodály completely suppressed any reference to Strauss's music. This is how he "elaborated" the sketchy note: Szentirmay's song remains alone in both his, as well as the whole folk and folk-like popular repertory of songs. We find no more than one or two similar melodic germs, and even if one occurs, it is no more than a detail of secondary importance. We find something comparable [to Bartók's use] only in a Cheremis song, but neither Szentirmay nor Bartók could know that.6 Kodály confined his discussion to songs and obviously decided not to consider any other possible source. In view of his aesthetic ideas, the supression of the Strauss association seems to be intentional. For Kodály, Szentirmay was a more acceptable "model" than Strauss. Yet Bartók's unusual attraction to Szentirmay's song also suggests that the stylistic background for his minor-third based motifs had an earlier and deeper source, which we, and Kodály, should identify as Strauss's Salome.

¹ Bartók's unpublished letter of 24 December 1905 to Emma Gruber written in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia), Kodály Archives, Budapest (Ms mus. epist.-BB14), photocopy in the Budapest Bartók Archives.

² Ernő Kulinyi's interview, "Debussyről" [On Debussy], in Beszélgetések Bartókkal: Nyilatkozatok, interjúk 1911-1945 [Bartók in Conversation: Statements and Interviews, 1911-1945], ed. András Wilheim (Budapest: Kijárat Kiadó, 2000), p. 10.

³ The motif with its dramaturgical role as well as its connections with other thematic material in the opera is briefly discussed in Norman del Mar, Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary on His Life and Works, 2 vols. (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1962), vol. 1, p. 262.

⁴ Kodály's letter of 5 January 1907 to Emma Gruber, Kodály Zoltán levelei, p. 31.

⁵ Kodály, Magyar zene, magyar nyelv, magyar vers [Hungarian Music, Hungarian Language, Hungarian Poetry], ed. Lajos Vargyas (Budapest, Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1993), p. 56.

⁶ Kodály, Visszatekintés, vol. 2, p. 464.

László Vikárius
directs the Bartók Archives of the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and lectures at the Liszt University of Music in Budapest.