Itineraries - Recitals and Lecture Recitals

Viva Bartók, Review by James Kennedy
Bartók Week, University of Victoria, Oct. 19-24, 1981

Dr. Bratuz' visit was both surprising and welcome, for she raised some quite original points in her lecture "The World of Béla Bartók", and then demonstrated remarkable correlations in style during a recital of Liszt and Bartók.

Bratuz organized her extensive presentation of the "sound-spectrum" of Bartók around topics in folkloric origins, linguistic influences, and "Nature and Night" as organizational concepts. She had a wealth of visual and aural illustration, and spoke from a wide cultural background—her allusions went as far as the sculptor Brancusi (for a similar use of organic form) to the rose windows in Gothic cathedrals (for mathematical, hidden, structure).

Bartók said, "Let my music speak for itself" but Bratuz. feeling as Edgard Varése did, that people listen with their memory rather than with fresh ears, spent much time showing the original fold idioms which were later transformed or developed in Bartók's "art" music. Thus Hungarian rhythms (especially trochaic "parlando") and instruments (bagpipes and shepherd's flute) were shown, plated on tape, and then identified in the Piano Sonata, Free Variations and the Inventions. Similar expositions followed on Rumanian, Bulgarian, and Araian influences. Bratuz' final large topic was the use of Natural Forms and Night Music, and here she advanced her view of Bartók as a religious composer—in the etymological sense of "religare", to connect. Therefore she sees in those evocative and mysterious night music movements, such as found in Concerto Orchestra, the Second Piano Concerto or "the Night's Music", a syntheses of folk elements with a ghost of religious tradition.
In her solo recital Wednesday night, she designed a unique program, showing similar works of Bartók, and Liszt's late, almost atonal Nuages Gris was quite comfortable near a Bartók Dirge.
Bratuz' playing had considerable authority and insight. This un-hyphenated lecture and recital demonstrated the best qualities of academic music making, and Bratuz well deserves her reputation and awards; most recently a Commemorative Medal and Diploma for her work was given to her by the Hungarian Government.