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The ''String Quartet No. 4'' by Béla Bartók was written from July to September 1928〔Kárpáti, Janós (1994). ''Bartók's Chamber Music''. Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press. p.339.〕 in Budapest. It is one of six string quartets by Bartok. The work is in five movements: #''Allegro'' #''Prestissimo, con sordino'' #''Non troppo lento'' #''Allegretto pizzicato'' #''Allegro molto'' This work, like the ''String Quartet No. 5'', and several other pieces by Bartók, exhibits an "arch" structure — the first movement is thematically related to the last, and the second to the fourth with the third movement standing alone. Also, the outer four movements feature rhythmic sforzandos that cyclically tie them together in terms of climactic areas. The quartet shares a similar harmonic language to that of the ''String Quartet No. 3'', and as with that work, it has been suggested that Bartók was influenced in his writing by Alban Berg's ''Lyric Suite'' (1926) which he had heard in 1927.〔Elliott Antokoletz, "Middle-period String Quartets" in ''The Bartók Companion'', Malcolm Gillies, editor, Amadeus Press (1988), 258〕 The quartet employs a number of extended instrumental techniques. For the whole of the second movement all four instruments play with mutes, while the entire fourth movement features pizzicato. In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called ''Bartók pizzicati'' (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument's fingerboard). The work is dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet but its first public performance was given by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet in Budapest on March 20, 1929. It was first published in the same year by Universal Edition. A study of the manuscript sources, as published by László Somfai〔Somfai, László (1996). ''Béla Bartók : composition, concepts, and autograph sources''. Berkeley: University of California Press, p.100〕 finds that Bartók originally intended the quartet to have four movements, not five. == Analysis == Bartók’s musical vocabulary, as demonstrated in his string quartets particularly, departs from traditional use of major and minor keys, focusing more on the chromatic scale and attempting to utilize each note equally. Regardless, Bartók doesn’t follow any form of serialism, instead dividing the semitone scale into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”.〔Elliott Antokoletz, ''The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music'', University of California Press (1984), 138–203〕 He also incorporates whole-tone, pentatonic, and octatonic scales — as well as diatonic and heptatonia seconda scales — as subsets of the chromatic scale. His use of these subset scales allowed him to incorporate a wide range of folk music in an expanded harmonic system. Indeed, his original studies and settings of many examples gleaned from his extensive explorations of the Hungarian countryside and Eastern and Central Europe, undoubtedly served as a major influence upon his expanded musical vocabulary.〔Elliott Antokoletz, ''The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music'', University of California Press (1984), 26–50〕 According to George Perle the, "primary basic cells of this work, at their principal pitch level, are":〔Perle, George (1996). ''Twelve-Tone Tonality'', p.12. ISBN 0-520-20142-6.〕 :x0 : 0 1 2 3 :y10: 10 0 2 4 :z8/2: 8 1 2 7 Since, "any tetrachord may be bisected into its component dyads in three different ways...cell x0 may be partitioned into two semitones (1-0=3-2), two whole steps (3-1=2-0), and two symmetrically related dyads...(3+0=2+1=3)".〔 Cell z is also the basic cell of Alban Berg's opera ''Lulu'', generating its Trope I.〔Perle (1996), p.14〕 Cell z8/2, however, may be divided into two semitones, 8-7=2-1, two perfect fourths, 7-2=1-8, and ''two'' symmetrical dyads, 8+7=2+1=3 and 7+2=1+8=9.〔Perle (1996), p.13.〕 The former axis of symmetry (3) being the same as that of cell x0, the latter (9) being shared by x3 and x9, and both (3 and 9) being shared by z11/5.〔 x may be seen as a segment of the chromatic scale, y a segment of the whole-tone scale, and z a segment of the octatonic scale (on 1: 12 45 78 te). Bartók held a long fascination with mathematics and how it pertained to music. He experimented with incorporating the golden section and the Fibonacci sequence into his writing. Though these fascinations aren’t obviously present in his Fourth String Quartet, he did incorporate symmetrical structures: Movements I and V are similar, as are Movements II and IV; Movement III is at center, greatly contrasting with the other movements. Movements I and V share similar motifs (some of it is based on cell z); the second theme in the first movement is prominent in the fifth. Movements II and IV share similar ideas as well, but the ideas present within these two movements can be considered variations on themes presented earlier, expanding and building on ideas presented in the first and fifth movements. Movement III differs from the other four movements in that it is textured and quiet. The symmetry of the movements isn’t limited only to the themes; the lengths of the movements show symmetry as well. The first, third and fifth movements are approximately six minutes long, whereas the second and fourth are shorter, at about three minutes each. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「String Quartet No. 4 (Bartók)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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