Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Great Concert Tours on Two Continents (1922–1931)
1923 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE one relevant opus each, fee for any individual piece and manuscript being 120,000 crowns. 23 April - Bartok sets out on a Western European tour, but returns due to the sealing of the Czecho-Slovakian frontier. 24 April - He leaves via Vienna, then on 25 April arrives in Leipzig. 27 April - At noon he arrives in the location of his first appearance in Holland, Amsterdam, and in the evening the concert takes place at the Concertgebouw, despite lots of inconveniences (Zoltán Székely ’ s illness, a bad piano and people turning pages badly, etc.). Programme: 3 sonatas by Scarlatti, Debussy’s Mouvement and 5 preludes, of his own works Burlesque No. 2, Dirge No. 1, Bear Dance, Evening in Transylvania, Allegro barbaro, Rumanian Folk Dances, No. 6 of 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs, Rumanian Dance No. 1, and Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 with the feverish Zoltán Székely. Reviews are very good. 28 April - He and Zoltán Székely travel from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, where they play the previous day’s programme, then return to Amsterdam. 29 April - From Amsterdam he writes his wife a long letter about his experiences. 30 April - He plays in an Amsterdam music school for 50 guilders. 1 May - In Paris Four Orchestral Pieces is performed. He writes Zoltán Székely on a postcard that the concert in Utrecht will be on 11 May. (Later on, following several modifications, the concert did not go ahead.) - On this day Bartok leaves Holland for England. 2 May - He arrives in London, and writes a postcard to Calvocoressi, to whom in the morning of 3 May he pays a visit. (In those days post consignments were still delivered within half a day!) 4 May - He gives a concert at a school for girls, the Abbey School of Malvern Wells (Worchester). Programme: 3 sonatas by Scarlatti, Nos. 6 to 15 of 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs, Elegy No. 2, Bear Dance, 220
