Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)

War Years (1914–1919)

WAR YEARS (1914-1919)

1917

22 February

- He gives an account of their trip to his mother, and writes that “The prima

and

secunda

ballerinas

at the Opera are dancing merrily to my music”.

26 February - From Rákoskeresztúr

he

writes his wife about their Doboz

trip and about the disorder at the Opera, which is even augmented by the fact that Tango is attacked badly for being Italian. One of the rehearsals was attended also by Kodály:

“

He found things quite good mostly”.

Tango is rather poorly. They can meet in person only at the 28 February rehearsal of the Opera, then on 1 March in Tangos flat. He has a bad impression of Tango at first, seen that the conductor is unwilling to bring about the premiere of the opus quickly, he would like to postpone it until the autumn.

2 March

- Bartok gives an account of these difficulties to his wife and writes: if not for the war and total insecurity, he might not even mind the postponement. Parallel to the preparations for the ballet he is also working on String Quartet No. 2: “The second movement is not really progressing, so I started to work on the third instead, for which I also had themes from two years ago. I would like to finish the whole thing before Easter”. (Eventually it got ready only by the end of the year.)

5 March

- He also writes his mother about the difficulties at the Opera House and about the ever worsening economic situation, among other things about getting 1 kilogram of sugar for 3 persons per month, and that you can scarcely get even candles. (There was no electricity in the Bartoks’ flat!)

9 March

- He writes a longish letter to his wife, first giving her medical advice, then about Tango finally giving in, so that the premiere is planned for May. He gives credit for this partly to Kodály:

“Zoltán ...

kept on chasing Reinitz the whole day to set upon Tango. And Reinitz was really setting ... he discovered that Tango ... was glad to take me on (only me of all the Hungarian composers)”.

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