Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Settling In Budapest. Systematic Collection of Folk Songs (1907–1913)
1909 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE 1909 2 January - The performance of the Scherzo movement of Suite No. 2 at the Beethoven Hall with the Berlin Philharmonics is the first and last time in Bartoks life when he is conducting. The reaction of the audience is mixed, some boo, others applaud, Bartok is called back five times. After all he is glad to have accepted the challenge. 3 January - He gives an account of the concert on a postcard to Etelka Freund and to István Thomán. 20 January - Budapest. He gives a piano lesson at the Zieglers’. 21 January - Letter to Márta Ziegler: “I can imagine somebody for whom I would be ready for every sacrifice, but nobody whose petty wishes I would fulfill... Because to such a person I could not be attached by that highest degree of love, which is necessary for making the great sacrifices”. At the end he quotes two themes of String Quartet No. 1 for looking into. 22 January - Discussing the topics of the letter of the previous day at the Zieglers’. 27 January - He completes String Quartet No. 1. 28 January - He writes Etelka Freund: “I announce with joy that the quartet was completed yesterday”. 30 or 31 January - He takes the manuscript of the string quartet to Etelka Freund. 31 January - He writes a postcard to the Ziegler girls. 1 February - A “surrogate visit” at the Zieglers’, then he travels to Nyitra county taking advantage of next day’s holiday (Candlemas). 2 February - From Nyitra he writes his mother: “There are beautiful sledge ways everywhere”. He spends the night in Zobordarázs, and collects some 65 folk songs there partly on 3 February, partly on the 4th when he continues his postcard of two days earlier, and gives an account of his experiences in a letter of 5 pages to Márta and Hermina Ziegler. He 112
