Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Great Concert Tours on Two Continents (1922–1931)
GREAT CONCERT TOURS ON TWO CONTINENTS (1 922-1 931 ) 1925 May Bartoks Dance Suite. According to Bartok the performance of Dance Suite by the Czech Philharmonics at the Smetana Hall, Václav Talich conducting, is very bad. 20 May - Bartok leaves Prague to spend several days in Pozsony. 24 May - He takes a longish walk with his mother to an excursion site, the so-called Straw Hut. 22 June - From Budapest he writes Robert Gragger, Director of Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin regarding the German publication of The Hungarian Folk Song. Bartok answers Graggers questions with extraordinary accuracy, and also raises questions himself, to make the publication expected for August as perfect as possible. At the same time he gives a list of where he requests complimentary copies to be sent (4 periodicals, musicologists, conductors, and 2 or 3 private individuals, his mother among them). At the end of June the Bartoks take their son Péter to Szöllős Puszta, preparing for a vacation abroad. 2 July - Before leaving Budapest, Bartok thanks Busitia for the Romanian place names. He writes that organizing the kolindas is slow work, but one that interests him very much. (Here he is already complaining about silence from Oxford University Press.) - He replies to Mrs Fischer b. Stefánia Szalay regarding her request concerning a young pianist girl, then adds as postscript: “Unfortunately I cannot go to Bihar this summer, maybe some other year”. (He had concerts in Nagyvárad twice more, in 1927 and 1933, but he didn’t have time for vacationing or collecting in the region anymore.) - He buys train tickets to Italy for himself and his wife, and they leave for Fiume via Gyékényes. 3 July - From Cameralmoravica (Modrus-Fiume county) they write a postcard to their son in Szöllős Puszta (they mail it only on the 5th in Milan). 4 July - They arrive in Milan in the morning. 243
