A comprehensive English-language monograph on Bartók’s “most personal credo,” Cantata profana has been issued by the prestigious Oxford University Press, written by László Vikárius, head of the Budapest Bartók Archives, ELTE RCH Institute for Musicology. This volume is part of a distinguished series launched in the 1980s (Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure, and Interpretation). In line with this, the volume pays particular attention to the detailed exploration of the work’s genesis – involving the philological examination of all text and compositional sources –, as well as to the musical analysis and interpretation of the final version of the work. However, due to the specificity of the composition, the scope of the study is exceptionally broad and multilayered. Considering that the creation of the work “was inseparable from the history of Bartók’s involvement with folklore,” the author provides a comprehensive overview of the work’s folkloristic background, primarily of Bartók’s scholarly work – which decisively shaped his interests and compositional style –, as well as of the Romanian colindă repertoire that served as the work’s source of inspiration; furthermore he offers in-depth analysis of how the colindă texts were transformed into a libretto. On the other hand, he outlines a more nuanced picture than ever before of the Cantata’s “compositional preludes” and inspirational background – with a particular focus on the significance of Johann Sebastian Bach as a model. The volume also includes an account of the reception of the work’s earliest performances, as well as an overview of the various interpretations of the libretto, which has become a cultic text on its own. This monograph, which culminates decades of personal research, can also be regarded as a preliminary and companion to the critical edition of Cantata profana, expected to be published in the near future within the framework of the Béla Bartók Complete Critical Edition series.
The volume is available for purchase on the publisher’s website.
The presentation of the book by Tibor Tallián, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, will be held on 4 June 2026 at the Institute for Musicology.
Viola Biró