A melodic line can have an “implied” harmony, even if no other notes are sounding at the same time, because the melody is constructed in such a way that it strongly “suggests” a harmony that could accompany it. The listener’s ears fill in the missing notes, so that they can “hear” the implied harmony in their mind. In this way, an unaccompanied melody can imply a harmonic accompaniment, that is, the chords that are missing. Implied harmony is common in jazz and in unaccompanied solo pieces for string and wind instruments, for example, in Bach’s cello suites. It is quite rare in pieces written for the keyboard, where there are always plenty of fingers left to play the necessary chords in addition to the melodic line. Bartók’s Unisons is an exception, as I show in this blog.

Mikrokosmos contains 153 graduated piano pieces, assembled in 6 volumes. The first ones can be played by students in their first year (indeed, week) of piano tuition. The pieces in the last two volumes Bartók himself played in concert. All of them are witty, surprising, and instructive. And even the simplest ones, from the first volume, are never boring or primitive. Boating, from the fifth volume, juxtaposes several musical elements (pentatonic writing, quartal harmony, layering of sound) in the space of a little over one minute.

“Five fairly difficult piano pieces”—thus Bartók described his masterwork Out of Doors, which was published in the same year (1926) as some of his other iconic piano works, such as the piano sonata and the first piano concerto. Nowadays, however, we tend to refer to it as the “Out of Doors Suite,” implying that all […]