Walker Starkie in Hungary - the 1900's

from With strings attached- Reminiscences and reflections, 2nd edition, enlarged, pages 268,269:

In Bartók’s second sonata there was something barbaric about his [Szigeti’s] playing, and the strange melodies resembled the fantastic improvisations on flutes by shepherds. The violin revelled in arabesques, but they were more primitive than the Gypsy ones, as though the basis of the music was a primæval rhapsody of the Magyar race before the invasion of the Gypsies. The varying rhythms, too, gave the same impression of Oriental primitiveness, but without a trace of the usual monotony.
cite as

Joseph Szigeti, With strings attached- Reminiscences and reflections, 2nd edition, enlarged (New York, 1967), p. 268,269. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1434460061659 accessed: 28 March, 2024

location of experience: Hungary

Listeners

Listening to

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Bartok's second violin sonata
written by Béla Bartók
performed by Joseph Szigeti

Experience Information

Date/Time the 1900's
Medium live

Notes

Quotation from the book Raggle-Taggle, resultant of a journey through Hungary and Rumania, where Walter Starkie was fiddling his way into the uncharted regions and into the intimacy of the real gypsy clans.


Originally submitted by tlisboa on Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:07:41 +0100
Approved on Mon, 11 Jan 2016 17:09:55 +0000