Classical Music from Transylvania: Bartók & Terényi String Quartets

Chamber Concert

Friday, February 22, 2019, 11:30 a.m.
Wayne State University, Schaver Recital Hall, 480 W Hancock St, Detroit, MI 48201

Join a string quartet of Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians in this trip through the eerie and magical classical music of Transylvania in the 20^th century, featuring Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 and Ede Terényi’s String Quartet No. 1.

Ede Terényi is a Romanian composer of Hungarian nationality. He was born in 1935 and educated in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and later in Darmstad. Composed in 1974, Terenyi’s Quartet No.1 continues the tradition of Hungarian national composers such as Bartók and Ligetti. The work is written in five movements, and it includes unusual techniques, eerie melodies, and imitations of natural sounds.

The String Quartet No. 5 of Béla Bartók was written in 1934. It has five movements and it is conceived in an arch form with a symmetry around the middle movement, which is a Scherzo written in the rhythmical style of  Bulgarian folk music featuring a meter of 4+2+3. The quartet was written as a result of a commission by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge who was an American pianist and patron of the music. The work was premiered in Washington, DC,  by the Kolisch Quartet in 1934.

Concert Program

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
String Quartet No. 5 
Allegro
Adagio molto
Scherzo: alla bulgarese
Andante
Finale: Allegro vivace

– INTERMISSION –

Ede Terényi (b. 1935)
String Quartet No. 1 
Adagio
Allegro moderato
Tranquillo
Vivace
Lento assai

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