In the article by Bright Sheng which I read for one of the reading assignments in 20th century music literature, some of the composers said Bartók was doing not creative work at all because his composition is based on the Hungarian folk tune even though they already had Liszt. When I read this on Sheng’s article, I felt so bad for Bartók. I thought what he did is something that should get applause and his contemporaries must be jealous of his talent. However, after I listen to Bartók’s early work, the Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1, I thought the music is very similar with Liszt’s musical style.
According to Lawrence Gilman’s program note in New York Philharmonic digital archives, Bartók was strongly influenced by Liszt’s music for several years when he actively absorbed and composed music. His interest moved from Brahms, Liszt and Wagner, to Strauss, but eventually his attention came back to Liszt. This is nothing surprising because as a Hungarian composer, Bartók was enthusiastic about Liszt’s dedication to Hungarian Folk tune. When he composed the Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1 (1904), he was focusing on learning Liszt’s music, such as the Années de Pélerinage, the Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, the Faust Symphonie, the Danse Macabre, and so on. Bartók wrote about his opinion on Liszt:
So I listened to some of the Liszt’s work that Bartók studied in this period, and noticed that Op. 1 was so similar with Liszt’s Faust Symphony. I’m not sure if this is because both work were composed from the folk tune or Bartók ‘copied’ some aspect of Liszt’s music. However, what I can say in here is that every music and art begin from copying your predecessor. As many Romantic composers learned from Beethoven, Beethoven also learned from Mozart and Haydn. Of course their music was somewhat similar each other, but eventually each composer found their own composing style and the music has been playing more than 200 years. So, should we still call this plagiarism?
Another aspect I want to point out for Bartók’s dedication to music history is that he discovered and bring the spotlight back to the Hungarian folk music (with Rumanian and Slovak) significantly. Innovation is not far from our life. When you see an ordinary thing with a different perspective, you can always find out the value of it. Someone might think what Bartók did is buffling, tedious, and useless task. However, he actually found and categorized thousands of folk tunes which could be lost if he didn’t collect them. Again, I want to appreciate his enthusiasm against the criticism and disdain.
