Bartók's Mikrokosmos

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos is a collection of 153 piano pieces arranged in order of increasing technical and musical difficulty. The work is "considered by a number of sources to be Bartok's musical testament."*

*Benjamin Suchoff, Guide to Bartók's Mikrokosmos, New York: Da Capo Press, 1983.

For generations pianists have studied its various pieces to develop their technique and interpretive sense. More recently, musicians have studied these works to develop their analytical skills and knowledge of 20th-century idioms. In doing so, they have often utilized a new methodology called set theory, atonal theory, or post-tonal theory.

Bartók's music is especially interesting when studied from this viewpoint since it contains elements derived from various musical languages. These include:

• functional tonality
• folksong modality
• symmetrical pitch combinations
• atonal chromaticism
  

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