The Celestial Philosophy Behind Bartók's First Violin Concerto

When I was six years old, I didn’t understand the concept of God, so I didn’t believe in him. I did, however, understand the concept of synesthesia and believed that this ability to see what is heard, was closest to whatever higher forces existed. It sounds strange, but when I first heard Maria Callas singing Vissi D’arte in Puccini’s opera Tosca, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to see her euphonious voice, and picture what Puccini meant by the words Vissi d’arte. What does it mean to “live for art”? Something convinced me that the divine ability to see this aria would help me fully capture Puccini’s perspective. As you can imagine, I was very disappointed when the colors failed to show up.

Recently, a recording of Kyung Wha Chung playing Bartók's First Violin Concerto has rekindled that curious flame. In quarantine, I find myself with a six-year-old’s time to wonder if Chung’s gentle brush of bow to string at the start of the concerto would be analogous to a soft, distant auburn orb of light. And then, when the violin plunges into a deeper vibrato and weaves itself into an ancient pentatonic scale, I wonder if that orb would spread its largess across the sky, rich hues of purple, red, and orange blending into one another...would I see the vibrato in quivering colors? What if colors and textures could translate the inexplicable beauty of Kyung Wha Chung and Bartók?

That would be miraculous - especially for a piece like Bartók's First Violin Concerto, which is based on Bartók's observations of his love interest, violinist Steffi Geyer. Bartók wrote the concerto to describe two sides of Geyer. The first movement, Allegro Sostenuto, depicts the “idealized, celestial and inward Geyer”, the one who dazzled Bartók with her intelligence, mind-blowing talent, humour, and ethereal beauty. The second movement, Allegro Giocoso, shows the “cheerful, witty, amusing Geyer", who also fascinated the young composer. And finally, the third movement, which was later omitted from the concerto, depicts the “indifferent, cool and silent Geyer”, the one that let numerous letters from Bartok pile up, refusing to answer them (Gillies, 469). She ultimately left Bartók brokenhearted.

I’m particularly enthralled by Bartók's first portrait in Allegro Sostenuto because of this concept of “idealism.” Who is the ideal Steffi Geyer, and does that person even exist? And with regards to synesthesia, what does the ideal Steffi Geyer look like?

In Allegro Sostenuto, Bartók describes the ideal Geyer as a gentle yet complex young woman. The first seven measures burst with Geyer’s grace and individuality. In an initial motif that is uniquely Geyer’s, Chung uses a faint vibrato on the C#, giving an illusory, timeless feel before easing into the next bar. She does this again on the F# in the second bar, drifting into an even darker timbre. Every vibrato has its own degree of intensity, its own color, that adds to the mosaic of idealism. The rest of the movement is filled with ebbs and flows like these. Chung literally relives Geyer’s pulse through her heartfelt rubato, seamless legato, and immaculate swells in dynamics. Her thoughtful playing captivates me, much like how the fascinating Geyer captivated young Bartók through conversations about music and life (Kim, 18).

Geyer's motif...🥰

The movement becomes even more bewitching once the orchestra enters. Through chromaticism and a series of minor thirds that seem to melt into one another, the solo violin treads a trail of visceral longing followed by a small swarm of violins. Then, at Figure 1, another group of violins join with Steffi’s theme, creating a background of indistinguishable chatter while the solo violin grows into the higher register. And just when you think the atmosphere could not grow more intense, at measure 23, another group of violins join, threading in Geyer’s theme in an alternate key. A fugue-like tango between solo violin and orchestra is created. It feels like a thousand moving gears perfectly falling into each others’ curves, or for those with synesthesia, it may look like a kaleidoscope of magenta shades beautifully blurring into one another.

The solo violin truly finds its element in these measures, exploring all breadth of emotion, harmony, and creativity. I can’t think of a description that would do justice to the genius of Bartók’s harmonies (frankly, my music theory is not advanced enough for that), but I’m convinced that this meticulously crafted fugue reflects not just the composer’s brilliance, but also that of Geyer.

A bewitching fugue...😳

This is a portrait of an idealized Geyer, after all! Bartók's genius sprouted from the real Geyer’s intelligence and insight, therefore the ideal Geyer must have been supremely clever. Kyung Wha Chung’s timelessly delicate vibrato on Steffi’s theme is an embellished version of the grace Bartók observed in the real Geyer.

...Or, is it? I, for one, hear the crafted portrait of intelligence and grace from these illuminating measures of Bartók's composition and from Chung’s recording, but Bartók himself may not have written his fugue with intelligence in mind. He may not have been thinking about Geyer’s grace while composing her leitmotif! As well-founded I think my opinions are, they most likely deviate from Bartók’s intentions. My interpretation, therefore, is no more than an excellent exercise of my imagination. It makes the idealized Geyer my own, and perhaps only reflects the ideal for myself: to be a genius woman of poise. I heard what I wanted to hear.

I came to realize that only Allegro Sostenuto itself is reflective of Bartók’s vision. Unfortunately for my six year old self’s fantasy, not even synesthesia could accurately paint his vision for me. Synesthesia, it turns out, would also be a figment of my own interpretation, my own ideal!

This brings me back to my first question: Exactly what was Bartók envisioning? Who is the ideal Steffi Geyer, and did she exist? The third movement’s portrait of the cold Geyer proves that she did not exist on Earth, but she did live in Bartók’s imagination. My theory is that Bartók was entranced by Geyer because she held qualities of his ideal Geyer, or Geyer, the divine. Bartók’s idealized Geyer was actually his vision of the divine.

A staunch atheist [1], Bartók would probably have hated to consider his ideal Geyer as a divine Goddess. To further my point though, I’ll refer to a powerful philosophy from religious scholar Reza Aslan’s book God: A Human History. He writes: “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we are believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves” (Aslan, xv).

Think about it. It’s worth a second read: “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we are believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.”

Humans actively work, consciously or subconsciously, to make God more relatable. Christians like my Grandma proclaim to their grandchildren every night, “God is kind and generous. God loves you.” By attaching every good human trait to our God, he becomes supreme in every way.

In Tokyo, (as a six-year-old), I frequently visited a Shinto temple across the street from my house. There, I washed my hands at a pool of water before offering my coin to gods as a ritual of respect. Why? Because we value cleanliness and money-giving as a sign of respect, and assume that the gods feel the same way. To have a God that understands our values and is the ultimate example of them is a comforting confirmation of our culture and conduct.

In Hinduism, each god and goddess is a role model and bestower of the values we treasure. For example, (my personal favorite) Saraswati is the goddess of the knowledge, music, art, wisdom, and nature. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and purity. Parvati is the goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Each of these gods and goddesses organize themselves into family structures like our own. They have parents and siblings, as well as desires and flaws; they are us on the divine level [2]

So if God is merely a perfect reflection of ourselves, then the perfect Geyer Bartók imagined must be a form of God Himself [3]. Asking who the idealized Geyer is therefore, the equivalent of asking who God really is.

When I was six, I didn’t believe in God because I couldn’t figure out the answer to that question: Who is God? Ironically, I found stories about God’s manifestations and values unrelatable and confusing. It seemed odd to me that humans dominated every story I heard of the divine...But I was eager to find a divine image that was relatable and convincing to me. I thought that I had found that image, that pure conduit to the divine, through Puccini’s Vissi D’arte. The next step, I believed, was to acquire synesthesia to color in the shape of this force that “lived for art.”

I wish I had known about Bartók's First Violin Concerto when I was younger because I think it reveals a few important truths: First, you don’t need synesthesia to know God (duh, I know). You don’t even have to believe in God to understand the divine. You just have to know yourself, because your divine is, quite simply, a reflection of you and all the beauty that you behold. None other than yourself can see the colors of that reflection.

The divine is as individual as the beauty each of us can recognize. It was the inexplicable charm Bartók spotted in Geyer and the ideal Geyer that Bartók imagined. It is the genius grace I raved about earlier in this essay. It is the ultimate culmination of our cherished values of family, respect, generosity, and beauty. It is us, in our rainbow of infinite realities.

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“If you love a being for His Beauty, you love none other than God for He is the Beautiful being. Thus in all aspects, the object of love is God alone.”

Ibn Al-Arabi, Muslim mystic and poet, Futuhat al-Makkiyah (The Meccan Revelations)

Kyung Wha Chung's Recording of Bartók's Violin Concerto No.1 😍

What colors do you see?

Special thanks to Michael Chen for introducing me to this recording!

Footnotes:

[1] Fun Fact: It is believed Geyer ceased contact with Bartók because his views on God and marriage conflicted with her Catholic views (Kim, 37).

[2] The Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians also arranged their gods into families.

[3] Or itself, who knows what God’s gender is.

Bibliography (MLA 8)

Aslan, Reza. God: a Human History. Random House, 2018.

Gillies, Malcolm. Bartók Companion. Amadeus Press, 1994.

Kim, So Jin. “The Violin Concerti of Béla Bartók.” Rice University, 2016, pp. 18–37.