John Roeder, "Pulse Streams and Problems of Grouping and Metrical Dissonance in Bartók's 'With Drums and Pipes,'" Music Theory Online 7.1 (2001) << Sect. 8a Section 8b Sect. 9 >>
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[8] Analysis of mm. 56-68 (continued)

[8.4] Thus once again we see a block of music distinguished from its surrounding blocks by a unique ensemble of pulse streams. The contrast is made especially vivid by the following audio example (VIII.1b), which presents only the "drums and pipes" doublings of the pulse stream, omitting the piano part.

(Example VIII.1b) [click here for suggestions if the movie does not appear or play correctly]

Click here to rehear Example VIII.1a

[8.5] At the beginning of the example, the quarter-note stream 1 is articulated by repeated accents of registral density, along with stream 14 and the decelerating duration series. At m. 64, however, streams 1 and 14 disappear, replaced by 15 , until the last measure of the blocks, when stream 1 is reinstated as stream 15 provides continuity.

[8.6] The asterisks above the score in Figure 5, and in the previous figures, call attention to a device that often recurs in this passage to signal the change from one block to another. Bartók tends to place a strong phenomenal accent an eighth note before or after the timepoint when the rearticulation of a prominent pulse stream is expected, but withheld. This is evident at mm. 30, 38, 48, as well as here. The strong accent usually initiates a new stream distinctive to the upcoming block.

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