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

World War II. Second and Third American Tour (1939–1945)

WORLD WAR II.

SECOND AND THIRD AMERICAN TO U

R

( 1 9 3 9 - 1 9 4 5 )

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ASCAP most

definitely and definitively ...”

11 October

- Columbia University extends his commission for the period 1 July 1943 to 31 January 1944 for a fee of 1,500 dollars, but Bartok is not able to undertake this anymore.

12 October

- He leaves Saranac Lake for returning to New York. He stays at Hotel Woodrow (35 West 64th Street).

14 ,

15, 17 October - At Carnegie Hall of New York, three consecutive performances of Violin Concerto with Tossy Spivakovskys solo. Bartok hears his work performed with orchestral accompaniment for the first time.

20 October

- In Budapest the Minister of Religion and Public Education gives permission for Bartoks emoluments to be paid to Béla

Bartok

Jnr for the period of 1 January 1943 to 31 December 1945, according to notification No. Vkny 7660/3 of the Pension Office.

26 November

- In New York Bartok writes Tossy Spivakovsky: “At long last I found those first drafts of the Violin Concerto which I had mentioned to you, so now I send them here attached”. This is his first reference to the Violin Concerto written in 1907 of which the first movement he later used in the first part of Two Pictures. (Stefi

Geyer

had the manuscript of the piece, and it would be presented from the manuscript in Basel in 1958 after both of them died.) He mentions that he is preparing to go to South Carolina (actually to North Carolina) in December.

27 November

- He writes Carl P. Wood about the extension of his commission at Columbia University, so he could go to Seattle in January of 1945 at earliest.

“In the meantime Menuhin had learned this same piece [Violin Concerto] and performed it in Minneapolis with Mitropoulos. He had also learned my Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 and played it at his New York performance at the end of November. -1 met him then for the first time, he is really a great artist” - Bartok writes Wilhelmine Creel.

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