Bela Bartok's Cantata Profana

The following is a self-gradifying (haha) centering of thoughts for a term paper proposal needed in BGSU's MuCT 514, 20th Century Analysis: The Hungarian Connection.

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When discussing Béla Bartók in a music history class, a student is faced with one of two works: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta or the Concert for Orchestra. There are a few others, such as the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Bluebeard's Castle (his sole opera), or The Miraculous Mandolin, that are talked about at all in a typical music student's historical and/or analytical studies. So when someone stumbles across a well-written article about the masterful Hungarian composer's life and works, mention of choral works can be a bit suprising. I myself had no idea Bartók wrote any choral works, with the exception of settings of the copius amounts of Hungarian folk-tunes he collected, published, and sometimes reorchestrated.

While searching on JSTOR for any information on Contata Profana (1930), I stumbled across a lone article about the work. Within the first paragraph it covers the very issue of the knowledge of Bartók's "other" compositions:

Ever since its composition an aura of mystery has surrounded Béla Bartók's Cantata Profana. It has been treated and approached by many as a secretive work of art lacking a particular interpretation and, consequently, has been interpreted from various points of view and via a number of scientific fields ranging from psychology and anthropology to historiography and even astrology. But the work - whose mythical ballad text and oratorio-like dimensions, unique in the author's output - still seems to be wrapped in concealment. (Vikárius 1)

But why? Perhaps the fact that this work is so unique to Bartók's output that professors do not discuss the work, as it does not fit into his "typical" neo-classicist composition style. Or perhaps because not many Bartók scholars focus on works that are not overtly influenced by his ethnomusicological pursuits or have strong Hungarian nationalistic tendencies.

What I plan on doing is researching and analyzing this relatively unknown work by Béla Bartók, attempting to discover compositional practices that make this piece unique, and maybe in the process build up some interest in this cast-aside choral work. Due to the timing of this composition's inception, ties his ethnomusicological mission are almost guaranteed. But discovering where he wrote the piece (perhaps when he was living in America), for what purpose, and delving deeper into the Romanian Christmas songs (colinde) that the work and its text are based upon, may shed some light onto the mysterious topic of Béla Bartók's Contata Profana.

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Vikárius, László. "Béla Bartók's 'Cantata Profana' (1930): A Reading of the Sources." Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 35, Fasc. 1/3, Ed. Denijs Dille Nonagenario. (1993 - 1994), pp. 249-301.