Bartok – String Quartet No 3 Set Of Parts Urtext

The String Quartet no. 3 is the shortest of Bela Bartok’s six Quartets, and was also composed in a remarkably short time. He wrote the score in September 1927, and in the following December it won him the first prize, endowed with $300, in a composition competition. The Third Quartet, published in 1929, captivates through its concentrated intensity: in a playing time of just 15 minutes, Bartok ignites a veritable fireworks of string timbres and rhythmic refinements. Even the uncompromising critic Theodor W. Adorno was impressed, describing this Quartet as “unquestionably the best of this Hungarian’s works thus far”.
For their edition, Laszlo Somfai and Zsombor Nemeth examined contemporary performance material. Their resultant suggestions for authentic performance variants are given here in footnotes. Further information is provided in the obligatory “Notes on performance practice” in Henle’s Bartok editions.