Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
World War II. Second and Third American Tour (1939–1945)
1 942 CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE 19 August - A. Tillmann Merritt invites him to Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts) for 3 months, for a fee of 2,000 dollars. 20 August - He writes his wife that he is staying in Nonquitt for 3 weeks instead of 1, and on 22 August he lets her know that he would return to New York in the evening of the 28th. 2 September - Already in New York, he replies to A. T. Merritts offer: he accepts it from 1 January 1943. Harvard University sends him credentials for “visiting lecturer” on 28 September. (In the end he was not able to honour this.) The Bartoks had had two Persian cats in New York. For the duration of their summer vacation they placed the animals in a veterinary hospital where they perished. 16 September, then again on 4 October - In forceful letters Bartok held liable Hospital Director W.M. Fleischmann for what happened. 7 October - He writes Yehudi Menuhin in Alma: he heard with pleasure that Menuhin was studying the Violin Concerto and would hopefully perform it next season. 13 October - He writes from New York to A. T. Merritt at Harvard University. 14 October - He asks Dr. Jacobson questions regarding the Serbo-Croatian lyrics. In October he gives a lecture at the American Society of Musicology. 20 November - He writes A. T. Merritt again. 31 December - From New York he writes a long letter to Wilhelmine Creel about his situation, his slight fever each evening, and about his commission at Columbia University having come to an end that day, which he regrets very much. In October he finished the appendix to the Serbo-Croatian material to be published by Columbia Press, and he is working on the voluminous Romanian material. He is hurt that the leading orchestras neglect both his old and new pieces, and is worried because his son Péter - regardless of citizenship - would be 480
