Variant Endings for Bartok's Two Violin Rhapsodies (1928-1929)

The composition of satisfactory endings for the two violin rhapsodies of 1928-9 was clearly a task of some difficulty for Bartók. In addition to the endings the composer authorized for publication, his draft manuscripts reveal a large number of other experiments with conclusions for these works. This study probes the problem of variant endings for the two rhapsodies, examining both the multiple published conclusions and the many unpublished, alternative endings devised and yet ultimately abandoned by the composer. With the First Rhapsody, strategies of recapitulation, the scope of the soloist's cadenza, and the character of the concluding musical gesture were apparently the principal issues of compositional concern. With the Second Rhapsody, Bartók's primary challenge was apparently to ameliorate an unduly perfunctory and abrupt effect in rounding off the potentially rambling chain-form finale. Issues in both works intersect with those in a wider pattern of altered and substituted endings in Bartók's music.