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

Great Concert Tours on Two Continents (1922–1931)

1924

CHRONICLES OF BÉLA

BARTOK'S

LIFE

1924

Bartók continues

to keep a close relationship with his divorced wife for whom he would like to secure a livelihood, so he is teaching her the material of the piano department to help her qualify as music teacher.

9 January - Márta

Ziegler

writes the widowed Mrs Béla

Bartok

in Pozsony:

“Béla is

teaching incredibly conscientiously, now he comes on time for the lesson every Thursday”.

Their son Béla

lives

with his mother, but generally visits the Bartoks every week.

16 January - Bartok writes a letter to the Breitkopf

&

Härtel

firm

in Leipzig. 18 January - His passport, valid for Europe, is issued numbered 271974. Motive for travel: “Profession”.

24 January - He receives his Czecho-Slovakian visa, valid for 9 cities, in Budapest.

25 January - He appears at the literary cabaret evening of the Vígszínház with

a programme of 12 minutes, which is repeated on 26 and 28 January. He gets 2 and a half million crowns for the three performances, which shows the speedy devaluation of money (the price of 1 kilogram of sugar increased from 8,000 to 12,000 crowns within 1 week). In the greatly varied programme Vilma Medgyaszay, Sári Fedák, Margit

Makay, Mr and Mrs Goth, piano humorist György

Dénes make

their appearance among others, beside many artists of mixed genres: “high levelled artistic output and amusing jest, a pleasant trifle”. - The Terézkörút

Stage

and the Apollo Cabaret under Béla Salamons

leadership

protest the competition; they turn to the Minister in defence of their interest. (Mrs Bartok b. Ditta Pásztory,

in

her letter of 4 February, puts the dates of the three concerts as 24, 25 and 27 January, but this is probably a mistake.)

1 February - His son visits him, and makes him sign the end of semester school report of year 4 in grammar school. Bartok complains about 230