Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Settling In Budapest. Systematic Collection of Folk Songs (1907–1913)
1912 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE concerning a collecting tour in Russia, where he intends to collect Chuvash, Tartar, and other folk songs. - Etelka Freund is inquiring about the aforementioned stage rehearsal, to which Bartok answers: “A totally uninteresting stage rehearsal for a concert organised in memory of our Grandfather”. (The 101st anniversary of the birth of Ferenc Liszt.) 19 October - Stage rehearsal of the 21 October pupils’ concert dedicated to Liszt’s memory, at which Ilonka Kabos and Tibor Szatmári play the piano, Erzsi Murányi sings, and Alisz Benko also participates. On the 25th Liszt’s Tasso is performed. Bartok presumably listened to the first programme. At the end of October he goes to Transylvania on his usual trip around All Saints Day. He also visits Bucharest where he meets Kiriac. 1 November - They write a joint postcard to János Bu§i|ia in Belényes. 2 November - Letter to the president of the Romanian Academy. 3 November - Still in Bucharest he writes a postcard to his mother in Pozsony and to his sister in Szilad. In the latter he mentions: “Everything is quiet here as yet, although we are only 2 hours away from the Bulgarians”. (It was at this time that Romania attacked Bulgaria worn out by the first Balkan war.) He also writes Etelka Freund. In Bucharest he meets Jon Bianu, who is asking for information concerning the state of Romanian folk song collecting. 7 November - Already in Rákoskeresztúr, he sends a letter in reply to Secretary-General of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society, Sándor Solymossy, undertaking a presentation about folk instruments. (This didn’t happen eventually; earlier he had written articles on the topic, one in the monthly Ethnographia entitled The Instruments of the Hungarian People I and II, later one in the Music Review entitled Primitive Folk Instruments in Hungary.) There were heating difficulties due to the cold November weather. 15 November - For this reason he writes from Rákoskeresztúr to one of his 140
