Math and Music in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra
Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer who carried inspiration from the naturalistic and traditional music of his motherland to develop his own symphonic sound. Some argue that his works segment certain events according to the golden ratio, so that tension is developed or released 61.8% through a movement or melody. Others are quick to point out that there is no concrete proof that this is intended. Listening to his music produces a stange feeling of conflcting scales. One explanation of this sound suggests that an “organic synthesis” of eastern and western music, and that his music relies on resolving the flattened mediant (Eb in C) and the sharpened subdominant (Gb in C) to the tonic in a series of “axis systems”. I don’t understand yet what this means, but the effect is distinct.
