Stable and variable elements of a melodic type collected from Hunedoara, in the Béla Bartók Rumanian Folk Music collection
Stable and variable elements of a melodic type collected from Hunedoara, in the Béla Bartók Rumanian Folk Music collection

Summary/Abstract: The Rumanian Folk Music collection consists of musical folklore recorded by Béla Bartók in Transylvanian villages over a hundred years ago. This material includes a certain melodic type individualized by its stanza structure and by the presence of refrains within the larger category of old style, free rhythm songs. All the melodic variants gathered under no. 325, letters a to f, were collected from villages in Hunedoara County during the winter 1913-1914. At a first glance, these variants appear to differ in terms of melody and cadence system, let alone the initial melodic formulas. Aim of the present study was to analyze all musical parameters, to identify the stable and the variable elements of the melodies, respectively, and to attempt a reconstruction of Bartók’s logic of classifying these melodies under the same melodic type.

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