Bartók’s six string quartets in the Complete Edition

Containing all of Bartók’s six string quartets, volume 29 of the Complete Edition appeared in May 2022. The edition is preceded by in-depth introductory studies in English, Hungarian, and German that explore not only the genesis and reception of the quartets, but also provide the most detailed guidance to date in questions concerning the notation and performance of the music. The volume also includes the critical edition of Bartók’s analyses of String Quartets Nos. 4 and 5 in English translation. The critical commentary to this edition will appear in volume 30 in early January.

Richard Taruskin dies

American musicologist and member of the Complete Edition’s Advisory Board Richard Taruskin passed away on 1 July 2022. His fields of research included music in Russia and the Soviet Union in the 19th and 20th centuries, early music, and performance studies. In addition to a number of seminal books, he authored the monumental, six-volume Oxford History of Western Music (2005).

Bartók and the Piano – musicological symposium

2019’s Bartók World Competition (organized by the Liszt Academy) was accompanied by an international musicological symposium organized by the Institute for Musicology of the Research Centre for the Humanities on 14 September, starting at 9 AM. The focus of both the competition and the symposium was the piano. The symposium’s program also featured a presentation of the newest volume of the Bartók Complete Critical Edition, which is being edited by the Bartók Archives of the Institute for Musicology.

Bartók and the Piano – musicological symposium

The first volume published in the Bartók Complete Edition

The first volume of the Béla Bartók Complete Critical Edition and volume 4 of the Hungarian complete edition of Bartók’s writings (Bartók Béla írásai) were presented on 11 February 2017 in the Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Both publications are part of one of the two significant series edited by the staff of the Budapest Bartók Archives.

The first volume published in the Bartók Complete Edition