Eliot, Béla Bartók and Compositional Techniques in Four Quartets

Eliot, Béla Bartók and Compositional Techniques in Four Quartets

Unlike the influence of Beethoven on Eliot, that of Bartók has been relatively ignored. Like-for-like parallels between particular poems and specific pieces of music by both of these composers can be dubious enterprises, and it will here be intended to avoid such an approach. This article will instead look at critical work which has been done on the string quartets of Bartók as a more general voice behind the composition of Four Quartets. As a necessary adjunct, it will also consider the degree to which Eliot would have been familiar with these pieces, by examining their performance history and reception in Britain, as well as intellectual comment generated about them in sources familiar to Eliot. Through some parallel analysis of the poetry and the music, and with reference to readings, including Eliot’s own, of Four Quartets, it will also be attempted to show how the principle of motivic development provides an important connection between Eliot’s and Bartók’s compositional techniques.