Béla Bartók
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Facsimile of the autograph score and sketches
Edited by Felix Meyer, 2000
148 pp. with an accompanying booklet of 32 pp.
30.5 x 39.5 cm
ISBN 3-7957-0399-2 (PSB 1010)
EUR 154
Available through Schott
Commissioned by Paul Sacher, «Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta» is among the undisputed masterpieces of twentieth-century music. Bartók committed the piece to paper over a short period of time in summer 1936. Departing from his normal habits, he drafted the piece directly in full score, which he then reworked several times and finally handed to the publishers as a production master. This important source appears here for the first time in facsimile, accompanied by an introduction in German and English and by annotated documents on the work's genesis, publication, première, and reception. Rounding off the volume is a separate booklet with rejected drafts, pages of sketches, and the original form of pages which were later pasted over.