Rumanian Folk Music: Carols and Christmas Songs (Colinde)

635 Pages·1975·50.78 MB·English

by  Béla Bartók (auth.)

Rumanian Folk Music
5
NUMBER IN THE NEW YORK BART6K ARCHIVE
STUDIES IN MUSICOLOGY
BENJAMIN SUCHOFF, Trustee
Rumanian Folk Music
VOLUME FOUR
RUMANIAN
FOLK MUSIC
, ,
by BELA BARTOK
Volume Four
Carols and Christmas Songs (Colinde)
Edited by
BENJAMIN SUCHOFF
Texts Translated by
E. C. TEODORESCU
Preface to Part One Translated by
ABRAM LOFT
Preface to Part Two Translated by
ERNEST H. SANDERS
THE HAGUE
MARTINUS NljHOFF
1975
@ I975 by Marlinus Nijhotl. The Hague. Netherlands
Softcover reprint o/the hardcover 1st edition 1975
All rights reserved. including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1685-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1683-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-1683-4
Foreword
I
n the first volume of Rumanian Folk Music (Instrumental Melodies)
portions of Bela Bart6k's subsequently-discarded preface, concern
ing the fate of his folklore publications, are presented in explanation
of the editorial processes necessary for achieving the publication. 1 By
way of introduction to this revised edition of a previous, although in
complete, published version of the Rumanian Carols and Christmas
Songs (Colinde), we refer again to the author's suppressed lines which
pertain to this volume:
The second publication by the same publisher was to include my collection of
Rumanian Colindas (Winter-solstice songs). Their extremely interesting texts were
supposed to appear in original as well as in English. After several years of delay,
the translation to English prose was completed, one part in adequate archaic
English, the rest (by someone else) in most unsuitable Kitchen-English. The
publisher did not wish to change this, though. Result: I published the book at
my own expense; however, only the musical part, because of lack of sufficient
funds. The texts are still in manuscript, even today.2
Our primary aim, therefore, has been to unite the Rumanian poetic
texts and translations with the musical part, in one volume, as was the
desire of the author. A second objective, motivated by the author's own
revisions of the Colinde,3 and enabled by means of years of experience
gained in editing the first three volumes of the present publication, was
to correlate the format of the music examples, poetic texts, and prefa-
1 Bela Bart6k, Rumanian Folk Music, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1967), Vol. I, pp. xxix-xxx.
I The two pages of this discarded draft, iii. Hungarian and English versions, are on file at the
New York Bart6k Archive. The publisher referred to is Oxford University Press (London).
8 That is, the first edition of Bela Bart6k's Melodien del' ,umanischen CoUnde (Weihnachts
lieder) (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1935), hereinafter cited as abbreviated.
[ vii ]
Foreword
tory material with that employed by Bart6k in the second and third
volumes of Rumanian Folk Music. What follows below, therefore, is a
comprehensive discussion of the source materials and the editorial pro
cedures involved in the preparation of this volume for publication, and
a brief review of developments in the collection and treatment of Ru
manian carols and Christmas songs that have appeared in available
sources since Bart6k's death in 1945.
As Bart6k states in his Preface to Part One, the Colinda melodies and
texts were collected by him in Transylvania,4 between 1909 and 1917;
part of them were published in 1913 (Bart6k, Arii din Bihor)5 and an
other part in 1923 (Bart6k, Volksmusik der Rumiinen von Maramure$).6
The earlier publication, its first music example bearing the title Colindul
copiilor (Children's carol), is limited to a few general remarks about
Colinda songs. The M aramure$ book contains more technical informa
tion on the subject, but-as the author observes- the small number
(twenty-seven) of Colinda songs published therein precluded a pene
trating characterization. And Bart6k's published articles on Rumanian
folk music contain but fleeting reference to the Colinda material.7 It
should be noted that, in 1918, he apparently wrote a short essay about
the Rumanian Colinda songs, intended for inclusion with his composition
for piano solo titled "Rumanian Christmas Songs" (published by
Universal Edition, Vienna, 1918).8
In the first edition of the Colinde (p. VI) Bart6k advises the reader
that he deposited a complete copy of the poetic texts in the library of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, and in the university libra
ries at Basel and Amsterdam. The circumstances surrounding this de
posit in particular, and the Colinde pUblication in general, form part of
4 Hungarian territory ceded to Rumania in 1920.
6 This abbreviated title, adopted for present purposes, appears (passim) in the music no
tations section of the publication. Arii din Bihor contains twenty-one of the 109 Bihar melodies
appearing in Colinde. (See the editor's concordance of melody numbers on p. XXXIV).
6 Published by Drei Masken Verlag (Munich) in 1923 and hereinafter cited as "Maramure*."
In revised form, published as the fifth volume of the present publication, it is cited as "R.F.M.
Vol. V (Maramul'e~)."
7 These articles, collected and translated by Constantin Br3.iloiu, appear in Scrieri mal'unte
despl'e mUllica populara 1'0mtfneasca (Bucharest, 1937). Bibliographic details are as follows:
"A hunyadi roman nep zenedialektusa," Ethnographia (Budapest), 1914, also in Zeitschl'ift fur
M usikwissenschaft, March, 1920; •• Rumiinische Volksmusik," Schweillerische Slingerzeitung
(Berne), 1933; "Roman nepzene," Zenei Lexicon (Budapest), 1931; "Roumanian folk-music,"
A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (London), 1924.
8 Letter from Bart6k to Universal Edition, dated April 11, 1918. The location of this un
published article-if it is not lost-has yet to be determined.
[ viii ]
Foreword
Victor Bator's introductory essay to Rumanian Folk Music.9 Let us
proceed, then, to an examination of the source materials.
THE MANUSCRIPTS
The considerable number of drafts fall into two basic categories for
editorial purposes: Music (Part One) and Texts (Part Two). The first
category comprises those manuscripts related to the music examples, the
Notes to the melodies, and the prefatory and miscellaneous reference
material. The second category has to do with the poetic texts, the Notes
to the texts, the refrains, and the Introduction to Part Two.
The music examples.-The first draft, consisting of field recording
transcriptions for the most part, and on the spot notations made when
recording was not possible, was, excepting three reconstructed leaves
(mus. ex. Nos. 48, 62d., and 72) and two fragments (mus. ex. Nos. 104f.
and 112b.), left behind by Bart6k when he emigrated to the United
States in October, 1940.10
The second draft is represented by the duplicate copies which were
prepared by Bart6k between 1925 and 1926 and sent by him to Oxford
University Press in London and to the Rumanian Academy of Fine Arts
in Bucharest. The latter copy is made up of fifty-six pages of music
manuscript paper written in ink (the Appendix-mus.ex. I-VI-is
lacking). There are numerous modifications-first in ink, then in red or
blue pencil.ll
The third draft is comprised of 106 pages of master sheets which are
exactly the same as reproduced in facsimile in the first publication of
the Colinde; it is on file in the New York Bart6k Archive.12
The fourth draft is in the form of the author's own corrected, published
copy of the Colinde and in which were clipped six slips of music manu-
9 See Vol. I, pp. x-xiv, xviii ff.
10 Each of the editorially-reconstructed fragments and leaves is made up of two or three
slips of paper-the reverse sides containing references to Parry Collection variants-which
Bart6k had placed here and there in his Tabulation of Serbo-Croatian Material.
11 According to Professor Tiberiu Alexandru of the Institutul de Folclor, Bucharest,
Rumania (letter dated Nov. 22, 1964). The "Bucharest" MS. was received at the New York
Bart6k Archives after the completed editorial revision of this volume had been forwarded to
the publisher; nevertheless, a comparative study of its contents has been made, and the derived
data are included in this publication. The location of Part One of the London manuscript
(perhaps lost?) has yet to be determined.
12 In his incomplete foreword to this volume, the former editor, Constantin Brliiloiu (d.
1959), refers to a letter written to him by Bart6k, dated December 6, 1933, in which the an
nouncement is made that retranscription of the recorded Colinde melodies had been accomplish
ed and that about another two months woule! be the estimate for completion of the music
master sheets.
[ ix J
Foreword
script paper containing the revisions of mus. ex. Nos. 1O c., 81 d., 83a. var.,
8Sb., 92e., and 102i.13
The fifth draft, editorially revised, constitutes the version used in the
present publication. It was assembled from a copy of the Colinde publi
cation and from the revisions contained in the fourth draft.
Notes to the melodies.-The English translation of the original publi
cation of the Notes, editorially emended, forms the final copy used in
this revised edition (see tn. 11, above).
Preface and Introduction to Part One.-Here, too, the English trans
lation of the publication served as the basis for the editorially-revised
present version.14
Miscellaneous reference material.-The tabulation of Statistical Data
Concerning the Output in Towns and Villages is discussed below (p. xii)
in the description of manuscripts of Part Two, where it originally ap
peared. Bartok's pencilled marginal notes in his corrected copy of the
M aramure$ publication (pp. 1-9) offered a means of checking his re
marks on Rumanian variants published elsewhere. Finally, his Tabu
lation of Serbo-Croatian Material furnished additional data which were
incorporated with the revised listing of foreign variants.1S
The poetic texts.-The first draft of the music examples is also that of
the Colinda texts.
The second draft of the texts, like the melodies, was prepared by
Bartok between 1925 and 1926. The London copy consists of sixty pages
in Bartok's hand, in Rumanian, neatly written in blue ink with a narrow
pen. This copy contains, throughout, the semivowels i and 1j. In 1933
or 1934, during or following the re-transcription of the entire Colinda
material (see fn. 12, above), he revised the MS.; indeed, the numerous
emendations appear in variegated autography.16 The Bucharest version,
however, has 502 pages; here the text lines are arranged in single column
form and on one side of each sheet, all written in ink and with few
revisions (see fn. 11, above). The orthography of the Rumanian Academy
13 The few corrections, made in red crayon, are limited to the music examples; in fact, they
encompass corrections and additions to data sections only.
14 In view of Bart6k's practice in Rumanian Folk Music it seems reasonable to conclude
that he may have prepared preliminary Hungarian and German handwritten drafts prior to
completion of the 1926 London and Bucharest copies. Regarding the probability of typescript
versions, see the description of the prefatory drafts of Part Two, below.
15 See the editorial remarks concerning this material on pp. xxii, 30, and 35-36.
16 A duplication of page numbers, written in black ink by a translator, Lucy Byng, also
appears in the draft (pp. 41-60). It should be noted that the cover page bears the author's
comment that the texts "from No. 105g. on are missing."
[ x ]
Foreword
is observed (that is, without indication of semivowels) in Text Nos. 1-
IOSf.17 There are two typescript pages of text No. IOSa., amended by
Bart6k, which were added at a later date (see the explanation, below,
concerning the partial copy of the third draft of the texts).
The third draft consists of three complete and one partial typescript
copies in Rumanian; their description is as follows:
I. pelddny (1st copy): deposited by the author in the Magyar Tudo
manyos Akademia Konyvtara, Budapest; it contains his handwritten
corrections and additions. Cited here as 'Budapest'.
2. pelddny: deposited in the UniversWits-Bibliothek, Basel; a carbon
copy, corrected as before.1S Cited as 'Basel'.
3. pelddny: deposited in the Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Amsterdam;
a carbon copy, corrected as before. Cited as 'Amsterdam'.
The pagination of the Budapest copy is, excepting a few pages, typed
to p. 149. Thereafter, the pages are numbered in Bart6k's hand.
The Basel and Amsterdam copies are the same as the Budapest version,
but with the exception that an unnumbered page (text no. 10Sg.) ap
pears between pp. 149 and 150.19
Three leaves and four fragments (portions of text Nos. IOSa., IOSb.,
IOSc., and 10Sd.; in the form of original and carbon copies) were recon
structed from Bart6k's Tabulation of Serbo-Croatian Material (see fn. 10,
above). Excepting three fragments, all contain the author's emen
dations; indeed, text no. IOSa. shows the entry I. pelddny. Bart6k ap
parently had these texts typed in Budapest (e. and f. variants, too?),
and he may have sent the leaves containing text No. IOSa. to Bucharest
(in January, 1932) as a format sample from which to prepare typescript
copies of text Nos. 105g.-141.20
The fourth draft is comprised of those text portions underlying the
17 Letter from Bart6k to Constantin Briiiloiu, dated Jan. 13, 1932. Also lacking are the
ruled double-lines used to indicate text lines which underlie their respective melody sections in
the music examples. Text Nos. IOSg.-141 (end), on the other hand, contain emendations in
Bart6k's autograph, including semivowel diacritical marks and ruled double lines. This portion
of the MS. (missing from the London copy), together with the similarly emended text Nos. 1-
10Sf. of the London MS., comprise the source material from which the third, typescript draft
(description follows, below) was made.
18 It was the intention of C. Brailoiu to use this copy for printing purposes in the present
volume, hence his handwritten additions here and there in the manuscript.
19 In the Budapest copy p. 149, originally containing only the fifteen lines of text No. 105£.,
shows text No. 10Sg. mounted thereon.
80 According to his letter to C. Briiiloiu, Jan. 10, 1932. In a letter to Oxford Univ. Press
(Nov. 2, 1934) Bartok states that "there are now 4 copies of the words at our disposal." It
seems safe to assume, however, that he alludes to the second, subsequently-revised and com
bined London-Bucharest draft as the fourth copy.
[ xi ]
Foreword
revised melodies in the author's corrected copy of the Colinde (that is, the
fourth draft of the music examples.)21
The fifth draft, brought by Bart6k to New York in 1940, is a carbon
copy of the complete texts which are orthographically treated according
to procedures used by Bart6k in Vol. III (Texts) of Rumanian Folk
Music. Furthermore, font and format of this draft differ from the typed
copies described above, and it contains none of the author's handwritten
corrections.22
The sixth draft is the typescript copy prepared by the editor as the
final version for the present publication.
Introduction to Part Two.-So far as this manuscript survey is con
cerned, the first draft is considered to be the preceding portion of the
second (that is, Bucharest) draft of the poetic texts. It comprises twenty
seven pages, in German and in Bart6k's holograph, and it includes the
Preface, Notes to the Texts, Index of Refrains, Index of Towns, Villages
and Performers,23 and Table of Contents.
The second draft is represented by the copies of the third (Budapest,
etc.) draft of the texts, all in German and in typescript form. The proper
part-that is, the discursive matter and the bibliography-appears on
pp. 60-71; the Notes to the Texts, pp. 72-74; the Index of Refrains, pp.
75--84; the Index of Towns, Villages, and Performers, pp. 85-93; and the
Table of Contents, pp. 94-95. It should be noted that the last two pages
appear only in the Amsterdam copy and that the missing pp. 1-59
encompass the prefatory material of Part One.24
The third or American draft (that is, the fifth draft of the poetic texts)
is for the most part the same as the first. Exceptions: the pages are
numbered from 1-31 and the Table of Contents is lacking (lost?).
The fourth draft, prepared from the English translation of the Basel
copy, is the editorially-revised present version.25
Notes to the texts; Refrains.-Since this material was originally part of
Sl It is curious to note the concurrent use of old and new orthographical procedures here
(see fn. 30, below).
sa The draft shows corrections and additions by C. Br1iiloiu and the present writer. Infor
mation concerning the original copy of this draft is lacking.
28 There is a second, revised version of this Index, also in the author's holograph (10 pp.),
which was probably added to the MS. by C. Briiiloiu.
a4 In a letter to Oxford University Press, dated July 2, 1934, Bart6k writes that he had
sent "95 typewritten pages (the Introduction, explanations, etc., in German, of my 'Rumanian
Xmas Songs') through R6zsavOlgyi from Budapest" a few days before. The Table of Contents
was intended to serve both parts of the Colinde book.
as The proper portion of the English introductions to Part One and Part Two had been
checked by C. Brailoiu prior to the present writer's assumption of the editorial function.
[ xii]