Bela Bartok

I went to the symphony concert last night, and quite by accident, ran into a couple who have been life-long friends with my oldest brother. We enjoyed chatting after the concert, and I sent an email this morning to my siblings, who also know Don and Marilyn, to let them know of this chance encounter.

In the email, I made a comment about the opening piece for last night's concert-it was a work by Bela Bartok, one of the greatest of modern composers. Although Bartok was a genius in his own right, I am not a Bartok fan. Bartok's music just sounds so disorganized to me. In the piece the orchestra played last night, (Concerto for Orchestra), there was a lot of dissonant chords and sounds that never quite resolved. There were frequent time changes from measure to measure, making the piece list from side to side like a drunken sailor on a rocking boat. There was not any discernible melody I could pick out - and although I can deal with some of that, I have a hard time doing that for a 30 minute concerto. It seems that Bartok ignored all the "rules" of classical music in his composing. Wikipedia says he did not use traditional harmonic functions associated with major and minor scales. No kidding. The opening measures of that concerto was indicative of what was to come.

I told my brother's friend Don that I wasn't a Bartok fan, but he disagreed. "It's great music!" he said enthusiastically. "You can just see the dragons come out and breathe smoke..." Ok. Don's got a great imagination. Give me something I can hum - give me a tune I can remember in my head. Does this make me a classical music wuss? Probably. I'm not ready to give up on Bartok, though, I'll keep listening. Maybe I'll learn something.