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

School Years (1890–1903)

SCHOOL YEARS (1 890-1 903)

1891

easily solved in Nagyvárad,

because

his Uncle Lajos Voits

widow

lives there with her 5 children, who are roughly of Bartoks age, and who also participate in his life later on: Emma (later Mrs Antal Göllner),

Ottó, Lajos

(

“Lujcsi”), Ernő (“Emészt”), and

Ervin.

This is the start of a regular correspondence that would go on till his mother’s passing.

10 September

- He writes a longish letter about, among other things, his music studies: “I thought out a piece again, I think it will be suitable for Gabi [Gabriella Lator,

his

childhood playmate]; I also thought out a small part to the Emma Waltz. My piano teacher [Ferenc Kersch]

...

came today, and he tested first of all how I could read; then at the end of the piece he said that I had 2 big faults. Istly I don’t give the right emphasis to the melody 2ndly I don’t leave laying what needs to be left laying. Then he taught me the names of 3 chords”.

In a later letter he writes about his grammar school experiences, then about music again: “My piano teacher first assigned me a Kinderstücke, but

that didn’t go well, and he said it was not suitable for me; and then he assigned me the Saltarello, and now I know it already, now I am studying the Gondoliera”.

17 October

- On Emma Voit’s birthday - he writes his mother - he smoked a whole cigarette and found it good.

18 October

- He gives his mother an account of the previous day, then writes about his piano studies, that now he is not playing etudes, but has learned 12 Mozart sonatas, and is studying a

Phantasia.

In a later letter he writes that he visited Kersch

Professor

’s flat at Apollo street twice, and after the piano lessons he looked at his photos depicting artists. Kersch

even

gave him two music scores for 95 krajcárs.

He

is asking for his mother’s permission to smoke four cigarettes a year on the main days (birthday, name-day, etc.). He mentions especially that he hasn’t yet been ill.

23 December - Yet there are already 120 missed lessons in the end of 23