String Quartet No. 4 (Bartok)

The work is in five movements:

1. Allegro
2. Prestissimo, con sordino
3. Non troppo lento
4. Allegretto pizzicato
5. Allegro molto

This work, like the String Quartet No. 5, and several other pieces by Bartók, is in a so-called "arch" structure - the first movement is thematically related to the last, and the second to the fourth with the third movement standing alone. Also, the outer four movements feature rhythmic sforzandos that cyclically tie them together in terms of climatic areas. The playing time for the movements are [generally] 5, 2, 5, 2, 5 minutes respectively, a display of the mathematical logic behind this quartet.

The quartet employs a similar harmonic language to that of the String Quartet No. 3, and like that work, it has been suggested that Bartók was influenced in writing this by Alban Berg's Lyric Suite (1926) which he had heard in 1927.

The quartet employs a number of extended instrumental techniques: for the whole of the second movement all four instruments are played with mutes, while the entire fourth movement is played pizzicato. In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called Bartók pizzicati (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument's fingerboard).

The work is dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet but the first public performance of the work was given by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet in Budapest on March 20, 1929. It was first published in the same year by Universal Edition.

Further reading

• Leo Treitler, "Harmonic procedure in the Fourth Quartet of Bartók" in the Journal of Music Theory (November 1959)