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 ) 1 944 and bow handling in Solo Sonata, and asks for the introduction of a few changes. Menuhin modestly asks for one year of exclusive rights, Bartok offers two years. 4 July - He gives a letter of recommendation to Tibor Serly. 5 July - He leaves for Saranac Lake where he stays at his old place at 32 Park Avenue. 6 July - From Saranac Lake he writes his wife who remained in New York, that the journey was not pleasant but everything is all right for now. Péter Bartok had already joined up by then, which increased Bartoks worries. 29 July - He writes for Péter s birthday in a sad mood: “The [wartime] God bless you!------... I feel melancholy anyway------but then everything will be just fine.”. 9 August - From Saranac Lake he writes his son who is in military training in Norfolk (Virginia): “Nothing special happened here”. 16 August - He writes Péter again. 19 August - Sir Henry Wood dies; Bartok honours his memory with a necrology. 22 August - From Saranac Lake he sends his wife’s cheque for the rent of the flat on 57th Street, where she lives alone at this time, to the Pál Kecskemétis (their New York neighbours they were on friendly terms with). He writes them that he is working on the correction of the preface of the Southern Slaw book. He is glad about the favourable turn of the war, but is afraid that everything would come too late. 1 September - He writes of this also to his son Péter (in English, thinking that a letter written in Hungarian might not be delivered at the armed forces); he mentions the liberation of Paris with special joy: “Paris was like home for me”. He regrets the fate of Hungary, and criticises its political leaders. - He asks the Pál Kecskemétis for the preparation of his upcoming tax declaration, then writes about the political situation: “It is my definite conviction that whatever were Hungary to do, it 491
