The theme at 155 in the oboe is based on an Arab melody, with a narrow range, with a drone in the bass. There are often parallel moving chords, such as in the violins at bar 192, and the trumpets and harps at 462. These parallel moving chords are reminiscent of Debussy and impressionistic elements.
In the recapitulation, all of the subjects are brought back in the wrong order. At 424, like 192, the chords between the flutes and oboe are spaced out, with the oboe between the flute parts, and the second flute playing very low. At this point, there are cross rhythms with the strings and harp, and at 438 there is a tone cluster in the second harp part. There is a syncopated passage in the flutes and oboes at bar 456.
The second movement is very rhythmic, and in this movement there is no set concertino group, but each new theme is presented by pairs of instruments. In this movement, there is the use of the side drum, creating a recurring tattoo. The octatonic scale appears once more in bar 62 in the flute parts. At 228, there is a Debussy like texture with the harp, adding to the tone colour. Also at this point, Bartók uses very specific instructions for the playing for the string instruments, such as ‘arco au talon’ and ‘arco, con sord punta d’arco’.
In the third movement at bar 10, Bartók uses decorated arpeggios made up of alternating minor 3rds and minor 2nds. This section is in an Arab style, which is quite chromatic, with a lot of orchestral colour, such as trills, tremolando, glissandi, and static harmony. The section at 73 is mainly orchestral colour, with glissandi in the harps and violas, and alternating muted, non muted chords in the horns and violins. There are many cross rhythms between flutes and violins in the section from 93 onwards.
In the fourth movement, the opening theme is influenced by Slovak peasant music and is metrically alternating. The interruption section, starting at bad 75 is taken from Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and Lehar’s ‘The Merry Widow’. Bartók has taken these themes and is making fun of them in this interruption section. It is very chromatic, there are cross rhythms between the flutes and clarinets, and there are rude sounding trombone glissandi’s to make fun.
At bar 5 in the fifth movement, Bartók uses very specific directions for the pizzicato in the strings, with guitar like strumming. The octatonic scale is played in the strings at bar 88, this comes from the germinal motive for the Concerto for Orchestra. The trumpet tune at bar 201 is treated like a horn core, and is pentatonic, apart from the Cflat. However, the Cflat is treated like a blue note, reminiscent of jazz. In the development section at 265, there is a strong contrapuntal fugue with a bizarre village band type accompaniment. A series of octatonic scales begins in bar 409, and there are whole tone scales in the strings at bar 533, with glissandi in the basses.
Throughout the work Bartók uses a wide range of percussion instruments, such as timpani, cymbals, side drum, tam-tam and bass drum. Bartók uses very precise instructions for the playing of these percussion instruments, such as in the first movement at bar 390, cymbals to be played with the thick end of the Side Drum stick, in the second movement at the start, the side drum to be played without snares, and in bar 114 of the fourth movement, the tam-tam is to be played laissez vibrer.
Therefore, the main items of change are more dissonance, rhythmically more interesting, and the use of a larger orchestra.