Akadémiai Kiadó Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae

Béla Bartók's Anatolian folk music collection. A report on a Ph.D.
dissertation defended on
the 16th February 1999 at the University of Szeged
Author(s): J. Sipos
Source: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 52, No. 1 (1999), pp. 97-98
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
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Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Volume 52 (1), 97-100 (1999)
MISCELLANEA
Béla Bartók's Anatolian folk music collection. But now on the basis of a large material
A report on a Ph.D. dissertation defended collected by János Sipos it became possible to
on the 16th February 1999 analyse the data and statements in Bartók's col-
at the University of Szeged lection. The new classifications concerning
Hungarian folk music also speak in the favour
of this revision. It seemed to be important to
The general interest of the author is to collect,
compare the three editions of the work because
analyse and compare the folk music of different
there were lots of smaller and greater errors in
Turkic peoples in order to establish the possi-
ble common musical layers if any and alsothetotexts and their translations.
compare these musical styles to the musicalBetween 1988 and 1993 János Sipos was
layers of Hungarian folk music. The author teaching
is at the Hungarology branch of the
one of the followers of the composer and eth-Ankara University, and during this period he
nomusicologist Béla Bartók, who made a short,made several field trips in various areas of
but very effective research trip to Anatolia Turkey
in which resulted in some 1500 melodies
1936. collected. He studied the earlier Turkish publi-
Béla Bartók's Turkish folk music collec- cations containing transcriptions as well, and
tion was published after 36 years of lying after a critical analysis he completed his collec-
ap-
parently forgotten in 1976, both in the UStion
andwith more than 3000 additional melodies.
The
in Hungary and somewhat later in Turkey. None six years long residence in Turkey, famili-
of the three editions produced a real arity
echo,with the Turkish language, the consulta-
tions
though these books are very important works in with the local ethnomusicologists and
the field of ethnomusicology. first of all the systematic collecting work, tran-
What could be the reason for this disin- scriptions and analysis of the melodies enabled
him to prepare a large and well classified ma-
terest? If we disregard other possible reasons,
terial.
there still remains a serious argument: Bartók's
collection contains only some 100 melodiesHe started his field work in the area where
and this makes the formulation of universal Bartók finished his. Later, step by step he moved
westward. In the end he deemed, he had suffi-
statements about Turkish folk music impossi-
cient
ble. Meanwhile until recently there did not ex- material to examine whether the state-
ist any comprehensive work which could serve of Bartók's Introduction stand the test of
ments
as a background to Bartók's collection. the time, or were uncertain or perhaps proved
0001-6446 /99/ $ 5.00 © 1999 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
98 MISCELLANEA
false. The task The result is

was the critical survey
quite of the
difficult
take into consideration
American and Hungarian editions theof Bartók' s orig
corrected form of Bartók' s Introduction and Anatolian collection, which assumed a perfect
knowledge of Turkish and a deeper understand-
transcriptions, Say gun' s and Suchoff's notes
and he had to find a way to insert his own ingob- of Turkish folk music. But the greatest
work, which enabled Sipos to put Bartók' s col-
servations too. Finally he divided the disserta-
tion into six chapters. lection into a broader context, was the consid-
erable field work and the transcription of the
In the first chapter he introduces the antece-
melodies. Sipos underlines the fact that, though
dents of Bartók' s collecting trip, his field work
and the circumstances of the birth of Bartók' s Turkish colleges sometimes record mourning
book. These are followed by the annotated ver- or generally parlando songs, they rarely tran-
sion of the Introduction, the Notes to the melo- scribe them, therefore several Turkish melody
dies and Notes to the texts. types appear in his book for the first time.
In the second chapter he discusses the mu- The other important point of the disserta-
sical classifications. First he introduces the fi- tion is the classification of the melodies. Since
nal version of Bartók' s classification concerningin this field there had not existed this type of
Hungarian folk music, then he enumerates thecomprehensive and comparative work before,
the 1500 melodies collected, transcribed and
newer classifications. In the second half of the
chapter he lists the attempts at collecting and partly published first count as filling the gap in
classifying Turkish folk music. the Anatolian folk music research, due to its
In the third chapter he introduces his own huge bulk and especially to the degree it had
collecting work. This is followed by the gen-been classified.
eral description of the collected material in the This great material enabled Sipos to enrich
following order: micro tunes, scales, symmetric and in many points to modify Bartók' s com-
and asymmetric rhythms, number of syllables, parative analysis concerning the Turkish and
forms, cadences, compass, the height of the Hungarian folk songs and texts. He analyses in
sections and refrains. detail the similar Hungarian and Anatolian mel-
In the fourth chapter he makes an attempt ody styles as: twin-bar melody types with the
to compare Hungarian and Turkish folk music. nucleus sol-mi-re-do, laments, and "psalmodie"
He arranges the Turkish material into types, melodies. In many cases he refers to the musi-
classes and styles and examines their relations cal connection which points towards European
to the Hungarian and sometimes to other folk and non-European (e.g. Central Asian, Byzan-
music. tine etc.) folk music.
In the fifth chapter he deals with the texts The examination of the dialect background
of the melodies. He begins this chapter with a of the texts is not complete, but the well-or-
historical overview. This is followed by the dered presentation of the dialectal phenomena
analysis of the contemporary folk texts. He ex- made the homogeneous and consequent han-
amines with great care the logical structure ofdling of the text in the Bartok collection possi-
the stanzas in Bartók' s collection, then prepares ble. Finally the dissertation could answer some
a critical edition of the texts, and finally intro- of Bartók' s questions concerning the relations
duces the relation between the texts and melo- between melodies and texts.
dies. Based on the recommendation of the offi-
In the sixth chapter he examines the histori- cial reviewers ethnomusicologist László Vikář
cal background of the comparison of the Hun- and linguist István Vásáry, the expert commit-
garian and Turkish melody styles. He surveys tee proposed to the Ph.D. committee of the
the ancient history of the Turks in Central Asia University of Szeged to confer the degree on
and East-Europe and scrutinises the Turkic ele- János Sipos.
ments which joined the Hungarians. J. Sipos
Acta Orient. Hung. 52, 1999

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Béla Bartók's Anatolian folk music collection. A report on a Ph.D.

0001-6446 /99/ $ 5.00 © 1999 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

false. The task The result is

Acta Orient. Hung. 52, 1999

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