MUSIC FOR STRINGS, PERCUSSION AND CELESTA

(1936)

Much of the haunting eeriness that pervades STANLEY KUBRICK’sTHE SHININGderives from the accompanying music from Béla Bartók’sMusic for String, Percussion and Celesta.Bartók (1881–1945) was one of the great amalgamators of music, integrating folk materials from his native Hungary with modern dissonant harmony. HisMusic for Strings, Percussion and Celestawas composed during the summer of 1936 and premiered in Basel, Switzerland, on January 21, 1937. It is scored for two string quartets, percussion, double basses, and celesta. The four movements are markedandante tranquillo, allegro, adagio,andallegro molto.The third movement, which Kubrick incorporated intoThe Shining,is one of Bartók’s most famous “night pieces.” The twisting chromatic melody, the slithery glissandi for timpani and strings, the mysterious tappings of the xylophone, and the series of fortissimo climaxes create a disquieting and neurotic mood. In the opinion of historian Jack Sullivan, this work belongs to a select group of Bartók masterpieces that evoke terror and anxiety. They include the operaBluebeard’s Castle(1911), with its “ghostly echoes of Debussy” and its “blood-drenched lyricism”; the slow movement of theOut of Doorssuite for piano (1926), “which treats the piano as a percussion instrument shimmering and vibrating with the sounds of nocturnal birds and insects”; and the pantomime ballet,The Miraculous Mandarin(1918), a “lurid, violent”work that “treats the orchestra like an instrument of aggression. ” Sullivan describes the latter work “as blood-curdling as anything in music. ”

■ Gillies, Malcolm,The Bartok Companion(Portland, Oreg. :Amadeus Press, 1994), pp. 303–314;

■ Sullivan, Jack,The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural(New York:Viking Press, 1986) pp. 22–23.

J. C. T.