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Allegro barbaro, BB 63 (Sz. 49), composed in 1911, is one of Béla Bartók's most famous and frequently performed solo piano pieces. The composition is typical of Bartók's style, utilizing folk elements. The work combines Hungarian and Romanian scales; Hungarian peasant music is based on the pentatonic scale, while Romanian music is largely chromatic.

History of the Composition
Allegro Barbaro was composed in 1911, but the first performance didn't occur until 1921. Like many of Bartók's compositions, there are are several different editions of Allegro Barbaro. Allegro Barbaro was performed in private by Bartók many times by memory before he even started to notate the music. In many early printed versions of the composition, the tempo markings were indicated at a much slower speed. These indications would confuse musicians because the recordings of Bartók performing his own composition was much faster than indicated. Also, many times certain accents and dynamics would be performed by the composer, but would not make it to paper because each performance wasn't the same. The publications of the composition that took place in 1918 in Vienna has become to standard and final edition. Allegro Barbaro is a frequent choice of students to orchestrate, in particular for their college studies. There are no standard, famous orchestrations for a large ensemble.

Analysis
The opening melody of Allegro barbaro is largely pentatonic (the first 22 notes of the melody use a cell that consists only of a whole tone and a minor third, the building block of the pentatonic scale). Indeed, the opening melody uses a Phrygian mode subset. Like many of Bartók's compositions, this piece circles around a tonal pitch. This pitch almost always stays constant and the major, minor, or modal relations around it changes. Allegro Barbaro is a short, dance-like composition, that at first sounds like it's free composed. However, one can begin to find traditional structure to the piece by looking at the harmony. Allegro Barbaro is in ternary form, which means, there there are two distinct themes, but one is presented twice. A typical diagram looks like this: A,B,A. The beginning of the composition centers around F#, the second thematic area centers around F, and the return of theme 1 is again centered around F#.

Discography
Allegro Barbaro has been recorded on hundreds of albums. Some of the most famous recordings include:


 * Out of Doors, performed by pianist Jeno Jando
 * Béla Bartók Piano Works, performed by Andreas Bach
 * Béla Bartók Baroque Transcriptions performed by Gyorgy Sanders