In Maxim Gorky’s short story “Song of the Blind,” a peasant woman sings to a pub full of people: “The monotonous melody was now drawn out into a long sob—on two notes of misery—and the two notes alternated throughout the whole song, like the sound of the teeth of a saw, moving back and forth. But in their insistence, there was a deeply sorrowful music that tore one’s soul to pieces.” 

Perhaps Béla Bartók recognized this fictional peasant woman in a real one he heard singing to herself in 1904—she sang a popular Transylvanian tune, yet with changes in modality and stanza structure that were unfamiliar to Bartók. It was after hearing this striking performance and reading the short stories of Gorky, a Russian realist famous for his heartfelt depictions of the peasant class as people with hearts and minds of their own, that Bartók decided to make his compositional legacy one of musical realism—he made it his artistic mission to document the folk music of Eastern Europe.  

Bartók’s belief that “genuine folk music…[is] a spontaneous expression of the people’s musical instinct” not only shaped his compositional voice, but also placed him at the front of twentieth century ethnomusicology. In 1907, he traveled to the Eastern Carpathian Mountains to gather songs like the one he heard from the peasant girl in 1904. Over the next years he recorded, dictated, and transcribed everything that he heard while travelling. He noticed as he was doing so that the music urbanites were calling “folk” was very different from the music being sung by peasants. While city folk might say that any gypsy Czardas was “folk music,” in reality the music was far more nuanced and complex. As Bartók said, it was “full of characteristic peculiarities deserving of precise annotation, such as, for example, the vocal portamento, irregular rhythm, and so forth, none of which can be recorded with the aid of conventional music signs.” He ended up dividing folk music into the categories of parlando rubato, or music that imitates the spoken voice, and tempo giusto, music that imitates dance.

In Bartók’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion, one can certainly hear the pains he took to accurately notate the folk. However, the influence of what Bartók called the “ancient” Western composers, and in particular the first movement of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata, is apparent throughout the Sonata for two pianos and percussion. Both “Waldstein” and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion are focused in the key of C, are written in sonata form with similar key areas, and most notably, the second themes share a similar melodic contour. The first movement of the “Waldstein” Sonata grew as a creative departure from a finger exercise for young pianists. In Bartók’s Sonata, too, there is something obsessive and harping. Known for his book for young pianists, Mikrokosmos, the Sonata for two pianos and percussion is in many ways the last entry in Bartók’s exercise book. Rather than focusing on pianistic techniques, Bartók’s emphasis seems to be on the evolution of the instrument; in some places the piano becomes solely a percussion instrument with banging and hard consonant sounds, where in other places the percussion instruments become melodic, adding color to the pianist’s chords. 

Bartók liked to think of himself as an “evolutionary” rather than a “revolutionary.” He thought that he should prove to Schoenberg that one could write tonal music even with equal emphasis on all twelve notes. He thought one should not “reject any influence, be it Slovakian, Rumanian, Arabic or from any other source. The source must only be clean and fresh and healthy!”

—Annie Jacobs-Perkins

In a brand new setting of Variations, icarus uses Marta Ptasazynska’s arrangement of Lutoslawski’s original piano duo with added percussion as a starting point for their own spin on this virtuosic and playful work. Even with a simple theme that everyone can sing along to, iQ’s version keeps listeners on the edges of their seats for the entirety of these five minutes to close the program’s first half.

“Hagyaték, the title of my composition, is the Hungarian word for "Legacy." In this work, commissioned by and dedicated to the icarus Quartet, I honor my most direct musical ancestors, Béla Bartók and György Ligeti, the influence of whose imaginative and exhilarating compositions are not far to seek. Also present is a sonorous memory trace of my friend, the composer Loren Rush. The only legacy or Hagyaték worthy of the name must not only derive from but also extend and engage the energies of its still vital source. May it be so with Hagyaték!”

— Martin Bresnick

“​This piece owes something to Béla Bartók. After all, he chose the instruments. The commission, from my friends in the wonderful icarus Quartet, called for a response to his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. More specifically, I was asked to respond to the second movement, an exemplar of Bartók’s “Night Music.” With this somber, eerie selection as my point of departure, the prismatic work that emerged stands in rather stark contrast. Cloak of Night is imbued with the energy of its own creation — sometimes anxious, often ecstatic, and always looking ahead. he title nods to Bartók, but more refers to its compositional process, with the work being done mostly in those darkest hours of night, with all the lonely secrecy they afford.”

— Viet Cuong

“Imagine you are a very small drone, flying around a somewhat magical clock maker’s workshop. As you move through the air, you see all sorts of mechanical inventions, lying around in full form or in partial construction – tiny pieces and very large ones. And sitting at his desk is the maker himself… carefully constructing new gizmos and fixing old ones. He is meticulous – carefully notating every MEASURE of the small, intricate parts that go into his masterpieces. There is a joy in his dreaming up new creations: figuring out what can be put in, and what must be left out, and how much crafting each piece takes to make a spectacular thing.

While the tools of our craftsman are laid out neatly upon a work desk, a look around reveals a workshop where there are many projects in process. Two obvious things: a complexity of ideas and joy in the making.

I have always felt that Bartók was just such a master craftsman. Studying his Sonata, I found the third movement to be some of his most joyous music. In tribute, I have built a piece on fragments, progressions, rhythms, and intervallic relationships from that particular movement. So hang on for a turbo speed journey in honor of a crafter and his workshop.

Turbo Shift, subtitled A Crafter’s Workshop, is dedicated to the gifted, meticulous, and imaginative icarus Quartet.”

— Jennifer Higdon