Mark Seeley wrote:

>I noticed something interesting as I was giving Bartok's 4th String Quartet
>another listening.  It is structured like Hebrew poetry, very similar to
>the chiastic structures of the Psalms of David and the Book of Job. ...

>I doubt Bartok had the chiastic structure of the Psalms in mind when he
>wrote this particular quartet (then again, maybe he did-- I don't know),
>but there must be some sort of musical term or description for this type of
>structure or plan.  Hebrew poetry is full of parallelisms and you can see
>the likeness from what I charted above.

Mark has made a very astute observation here.  I hadn't thought of the
connection with Hebrew poetry, but its musical form is known as "arch
form", and Bartok uses it in some of his greatest works (the 3rd movement
of *Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste* and the arrangement of
movements in *Concerto for Orchestra* are two cases that immediately come
to mind).  As pointed out above, the middle movement (or section of a
movement) serves as the keystone to the arch.

>For all the advanced techniques and variety of style in these quartets,
>they still sound like finger nails scrapping a chalk board. . . but they
>are slowly growing on me.

I hope you give them more time, as you are in for years of indescribable
pleasure if you do.

Leslie Kinton
Piano Faculty, The Glenn Gould Professional School,
The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto.
Anagnoson and Kinton piano duo website: http://www.pianoduo.com