Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Last Journey Home, “… But For Good” (1988)
1988 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE We arrived in Vienna in the afternoon, where we parked the car carrying the coffin at the embassy. Afterwards we checked in at the Hotel Erzherzog Rainer, which is on the same street (Wiedner Hauptstraße), a few blocks away from the Viennese Goldenes Lamm hotel, which has since ceased to exist and is where my father used to stay during his visits in Vienna. Then we went to the Musikvereinsaal at 5 p.m. - Efforts were made throughout the route to get us to publicly display the coffin, and this was pushed the most by the Austrians. By no means did I wish to disturb the ashes across half of Europe, and it was only in Vienna we agreed to place the coffin car in the square in front of the Musikvereinsaal, but we did not allow it to be opened here, either. The memorial in Vienna was held at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, first we were greeted by Secretary General of the Vienna Friends of Music Dr. Tamás Ángyán, then the Director of their Archives Dr. Otto Biba gave a lecture entitled “ Bartók in Musikverein ”, followed by the farewell speech of Head of Department Dr. Hans Temnitschka on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art, and our Ambassador János Nagy thanked all for what had been said. In the end Das Artis String Quartet performed String Quartet No. 3. Amidst the large audience the delegation of Burgenland also appeared led by Councilor Josef Schmidt with the participation of the representatives of the Hungarians living in Őrség. 5 July - We set out for the Hungarian border at 10:30 a.m., arrived by 12:15 p.m. at Miklósfalva (Nickelsdorf) where the Austrians (including the Burgenlanders) said goodbye to us, and we reached the border barrier following the precise scenario at 12:29 p.m. When the border barrier was raised, the combined choir of Szombathely and Kőszeg sang the song “I left my beautiful homeland...” conducted by István Németh, then we went rolling between the lines of ceremoniously dressed border guards to the border station where 514
