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

Settling In Budapest. Systematic Collection of Folk Songs (1907–1913)

SETTLING IN BUDAPEST. SYSTEMATIC

COLLECTION OF FOLK SONGS ( 1 907-1 91 3)

1913

stating that he doesn’t wish to participate in any action, because after the fruitless toils of 8 years the way he sees it he hasn’t achieved a thing either as a composer or as a performer abroad, the Bluebeard is not performed; so he is withdrawing completely, composing for his drawer at most (all the same he mentions that the Opera House ordered a one-act from him!), and he will put all his energy into collecting folk songs.

5 September - He arrives home with his family for the start of the school year on route Vésztő-Kótpuszta-Gyoma-Rákoshegy.

During the autumn, beside teaching, he is engaged first of all in editing folk songs of Máramaros

and

Hont

county

simultaneously.

3 November - He writes Sámuel

Bobál in

Egyházmarót

regarding

the material of Hont

county,

that he transcribed the collected 180 songs, and due to the melodic riches of the region he intends to return there on 21 November and stay until 25 November to collect as many songs as possible in Apátmarót,

Egyházmarót, and

maybe also in Lissó.

2 December - He gets his train pass for the year 1914. - His publication of the Romanian folk songs in Bihar county is issued in Bucharest entitled Càntece

popolare

románesti

din

comitatui

Bihor

[Ungaria] which gives him great joy, and he is doing his best to prepare his Máramaros collection

for print with renewed strength.

10 December - He writes a detailed proposition to the Romanian Academy of Sciences about the preparation of the publication. He stresses the point that it would be more favourable to cut the scores instead of printing them, both from a scientific and a typographical point of view. As it seems insolvable

in

Bucharest, he recommends the Röder

firm of Leipzig for the task.

18 December - The manuscript is complete, Bartok sends it to Jon Bianu in Bucharest, repeating his proposal of 10 December. On this same day he posts the copy of his 10 December letter to Dimitrie Kiriac, and explains the logic of his system in organising melodies; he also writes 147