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Béla Bartók, Joseph Szigeti en Benny Goodman
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Béla Bartók, Joseph Szigeti en Benny Goodman · This is not a band but a trio that belongs to a single composition: Contrasts by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The piece was written for the violinist Joseph Szigeti and the clarinettist Benny Goodman, who both commissioned it. Bartók himself played the piano part. The instrumentation of clarinet, violin and piano is unusual for chamber music, because the two melody instruments both sound high and the sound is therefore less balanced than in a trio with cello. It is precisely that difference in colour between reed, string and keyboard that gives the work its character.
Music and breakthrough
The first movement is called Verbunkos. A verbunkos is a Hungarian recruiting dance, once played to win young men over to the army. Bartók worked folk music into a modern, sharp-sounding musical language, and investigated that tradition throughout his life. One expert calls Contrasts a work of technical bravura and at the same time poetic versatility.
Influence
The combination of the three musicians is itself also a contrast. Goodman came from the world of swing and jazz, Szigeti was a concert violinist from the classical tradition, and Bartók brought Hungarian folk music with him. In this way the trio joins three worlds that in the history of popular music keep entering into conversation with one another: folk, classical and jazz.
Listening
Contrasts: I. Verbunkos · Béla Bartók, Joseph Szigeti en Benny Goodman, 1940