The String Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102, BB 110 by Béla Bartók was written between 6 August and 6 September 1934. It is one of six string quartets by Bartok.
Additionally, the first movement, which is in a sort of sonata form, is itself arch-like, in that each section of exposition is given in reverse order during the recapitulation – the melodies of each section are also inverted (played upside-down). Bartók himself pointed out that the keys used in the movement ascend in the steps of the whole tone scale: the exposition is in B♭, C and D; the development is in E; and the recapitulation is in F♯, A♭ and B♭.[citation needed]
The three middle movements are all in ternary form, of which the third is in the unevenly-divided aksaktime signatures typical of Bulgarian folk music: 4+2+3 8 for the main scherzo, and 3+2+2+3 8 in the trio.[1] The last movement is again arch-like: Bartók described it as being in the form ABCB′A′ with a coda to round things off.
The two slow movements, the second Adagio molto and the fourth Andante are great examples of Bartók's night music style: eerie dissonances, imitations of natural sounds, and lonely melodies.
Antokoletz, Elliott. The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Chapman, Roger E. "The Fifth Quartet of Béla Bartók", Music Review (1951).
