String Quartet no. 3

The String Quartet no. 3 is the shortest of Béla Bartók’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, Bartók 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, László Somfai and Zsombor Németh 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 Bartók editions.