Girotondo, from Bartókiana [Digital Sheet Music]

Girotondo is taken from Bartókiana, a collection for piano four hands by Ilio Barontini.

About Bartókiana

"My interest in Béla Bartók's didactic works led me to spread the word about For Children and Mikrokosmos among the students of several Conservatoires since the early 1980s. In 1981, on the centenary of the birth of the great Hungarian musician, I prepared the analysis and the full performance of Mikrokosmos, after an inaugural speech of Boris Porena.

Bartókiana is conceived with the aim to open a new creative rebirth, giving students and teachers a piano four hands version of twenty pieces chosen among two fundamental works by Bartók.

This collection presents a progressive level of difficulty and alternates fast and slow pieces. In particular, the pieces I have chosen are taken from the first two volumes of Mikrokosmos (defined a "real treatise on the basics of music composition" by Porena) and from both the books of For Children (the first one based on Hungarian folk heritage, the second one on Slovakian tunes).

In his Preface to Mikrokosmos, Bartók himself had invited musicians to use his pieces freely for new creative projects, meaning also transcriptions for various ensembles. Bartókiana aims to offer a contribution to the education of young pianists and musicians, believing that the practice of piano duo has an important role since the early years of studying."

"The educational value of Béla Bartók's didactic works lies in his capability of giving the same level of quality and musical sense both to the pieces that were written for young players and to the ones that were addressed to concert performers. Bartókiana wishes to offer everybody the chance to experience this value making music together.

In fact, this collection consists of twenty pieces selected from the first two volumes of Mikrokosmos and from both the books of For Children, transcribed for piano four hands by Ilio Barontini, who worked on this material in full respect of the Author's thought, with meaningful solutions from a compositional and aesthetic point of view.

Bartókiana can be considered a journey into the musical art of the Hungarian Master because these twenty pieces are a representative sample of his piano works and contain all of their communicative dynamics: percussive gestures, folk instrumental or vocal idioms, agitated or melancholic situations and moments of reflection, serenity or celebration."

Click here to listen to Girotondo on Spotify