Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
World War II. Second and Third American Tour (1939–1945)
1939 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE stigma of being chosen ones, can not count on others, on the crowd, but only on the chosen few. That’s why you cannot be considered one graced by the crowd either, Ady’s role was only an introduction to the appreciation of folk arts, and the Hungarians’ slow but sure, ceaseless, upward life struggle was crowned by the workings of Ady and some of his contemporaries. You have been contributing greatly to this educational work for more than 30 years with your novels, short stories and with your many studies and critiques covering the whole of Hungarian life, showing an example of a brave stand and the struggle for and watchful preservation of self-serving Hungarians, of an independent national life. Today the latter is a matter of life or death for us!...” 30 May - He works at the Academy of Sciences, then visits his mother and aunt in the evening. 31 May - He writes Gyula Ortutay again: “At Rózsavölgyi I found that the folk music records are in circulation ...”. 1 June - In contrast to his letters of 27 April and 18 May, he writes Budapest Opera House that after all he doesn’t want to be paid that one-third share which should be Béla Balázs’s due. He writes Paul Sacher in Basel regarding the planned work for string orchestra, and he poses questions about the performance possibilities of his ideas by the Basel orchestra. 3 June - He writes again to Organisation Artistique Internationale, and to composer Sándor Veress living in London whom he informs of his problems, and writes especially that, although not intending to leave Hungary, he is still occupied mainly by the moral aspect ofthe question. He mentions that “ Kodály has no intention of leaving at all, so as a last resort he would carry on with the works of folk music publication”. Seen that Veress wanted to contribute to the systematisation of the folk song collection, Bartok offers him the Polish and Ukrainian material. (Later even the unpublished Romanian material went to Veress, but in 442
