I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the 44 Violin Duets by Bela Bartok. They are intended as pedagogical exericises and therefore the first "voice" is typically a more or less straightforward setting of a folk tune, suitable for a student to play. The second voice adds a 20th-century harmonic sense and is often a bit more challenging both in terms of intonation of the unusual intervals and in terms of rhythmic complexity. My teacher suggested, as a warm up exercise for making a multitrack recording of the Bach Double that I'm working on, trying to get good recordings of a few of these Bartok Duets. I've posted two very rough attempts on my SoundCloud page. One of these simplest of the duets is #4 the "Midsummer Night Song" which is not a difficult bit of playing. Unfortunately, I hear the recording and realize that "Red Light Fever" resulted in me attempting it at closer to 140bpm than the indicated "92-104" at which I'd practiced. No wonder it fell apart near the end! http://soundcloud.com/brent-hutto/be...-violin-duet-4 The second is a bit tougher rhythmically, the "New Years Song (1)" which is Duet #4. If you can find a recording of this done by violins (maybe on YouTube) it is really cool and spooky sounding. I tried making the lead voice sound "darker" than the second voice by moving my hand up onto the bridge for a bit of damping and picking up on the end of the fingerboard. It did darken the sound but also made it muddy so I don't think I'll be trying that trick again soon. http://soundcloud.com/brent-hutto/be...in-duet-21-new
It sounded perfectly bartocked to me all the way... Next, you must try Arnold Schönberg.
Hi Brent, Sounding good. I think after I get #11 we ought to do a cross country duet.
Bertram, Even my mandolin teacher's taste stops short of Schönberg, it seems. I can be talked into 20th century music on occasion...but it does have to be "music", per se... Gary, Awesome idea! It can't be any harder to play in sync with a recording of another person than with a recording of myself. Dualing A-5's. A veritable A-5 Choir.
Interesting direction, Brent. These attempts had a nice impressionistic sound to them. Somewhere on some CD shelf I have some Bartok violin music, probably purchased 25 years ago. Have to go hunting for it, have a listen again. ~Robert
If you get a chance, check out #19 "Fairy Tale" and #20 "Rhythm Song". Especially #19, it has a very cool sort of ostinato in the 2nd violin part against an ultra-simple melody very sparsely arranged in the other voice. I think it works surprisingly well on mandolin given how slow and sparse it is. Here's a nice violin performance, albeit a poor recording...
Nice performance, thanks. Both pieces are appealing. I thought I'd download some sheet music for #19 -- geez, it's got funky time signature and tempo changes! What one would expect from Eastern Europe. I'll have to give it a try, maybe on fiddle eventually. Lots of those pesky Eb notes, I noticed.
I finally got an almost clean rendition of No. 19 "Fairy Tale" together and uploaded it. Also Nos. 6, 7 and unfortunately 8 (which did not turn out well). http://soundcloud.com/brent-hutto/bartok19fairytale
