Bartok String Quartets 1, 3 & 5 (Takacs)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Any views on the extraordinary interruption towards the end of the 5th Quartet's finale? Bartok writes a sickly diatonic phrase in 1st violin, with oom-cha tonic/dominant accompaniment, before rendering this tune a semitone higher with the original harmony underneath.

Is it a folksong quotation? (I ask because it was the tune - played on ocarina IIRC - that accompanied the "young girl with a tortoise*" sketches back in the day on Vision On.)

If it is a folksong, and if anyone knows the words, this might help explain it's gloriously "inappropriate" appearance in the Quartet?

* - called Humphrey** IIRC.


** - the tortoise, not the girl.

[mercia]

"young girl with a tortoise*"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWOGbfoNkOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yowlLYJbyc0

[Tapiola]

fhg and mercia,

Astonishing on a couple of counts!

Remarkably similar to the Bartok. Also, this is the first time I have heard this Vision On sketch since I was a child myself. From time to time, the tune would go round in my head without me being able to place it.

s to you both.