Gergely Pál: Bartók Béla ismeretlen levelei a Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtárában (A MTAK kiadványai 22. Budapest, 1961)

by June 30th, then unfortunately nothing can bo done about it, because on July 1st 1 shall he leaving for (i weeks; I shall have no permanent address, so that during this period you cannot send me anything. In this case then, unless we want to wait with the appearance of the hook to the end of August, sheets 12 and 13 would have to be printed as they are, together with all their faults and disorderlinoss. I cannot understand the business whatever I do, because I returned sheet 10— 13 together at the end of May — it is on sheet 12 or 13 that there is that "Ki-ki-ku-ku" text, of which I wrote in the letter I then sent; you even referred to this remark of mine in your letter of June 2nd, so sheets 12 and 13 must also have arrived in Berlin. However, on the bottom of]). 17(1 of the last proofs but one, the printer wrote the remark: ,,Bg. 12+13 fehlen?" — Have sheets 12 and 13 then been lost? I cannot give a definite answer to a part of the questions you put in your letter of June 17th. But let us take them in succession: The ballads (but similarly also any lyrical song text) are performed only in song, never recited. Mo text that has a tune is ever declaimed by the peasants without the tune, so closely is the text welded to the tune. On the other hand texts which have no tune, only occur in the case of children's games (counting-out rhymes, etc.); but even these are never spoken in a recitative style, but to beat in very strict rhythm. I might say that it is almost impossible for dancing ever to have been linked to the performance of ballads sung to the tunes of classes A) and C). Dancing could only have occurred together with the singing of texts like dance-words with these the dance and the tune must have been the main thing and the text only supplementary. Among the tunes of class B) there are few with ballad texts. But even if there are, it is highly probable that the ballad concerned was previously sung to a tune belonging to class A) or C), and only later fitted to the new tune. Such class li) tunes cotdd certainly also have served as dance-music, but they would on such occasions — while dancing hardly have sung the ballad texts to them, at best the musician may have played them. Generally speaking, ballad-singing and dancing seem to be mutually exclusive activities according to our observations, with our Hungarian peasants as with the Wallachians arul also the Slovaks. We have found no trace of the ballads (or lyrical texts) ever having been performed with division into a prime singer and choir, whether there was a refrain or not. (In the older, serious ballad texts, moreover in the texts to class A) tunes generally, in fact in the old peasant music — it seems — refrains were completely unknown.) When and where the ballads are sung (or rather were sung) most or exclusively, is something on which we were unfortunately no longer able to acquire information. The old ballad texts, together with their tunes, were in our times already so near to dying out, that this kind of rôle (if indeed they had such a rôle at all) could not have been traced. I do not know of any ethnographic description of the mode of performance of the ballads. The tunes of the majority of the old ballads are of class A) or sub-class C) I. Those in class A) have no relation to the German tunes. I do not know much French folkmusic, but they can hardly be related to it either. Among the (non-uniform type) tunes of sub-class C) I, one or other may be in some kind of relat ionship, though rather distant, with West European tunes. — Tinôdi's tunes — as far as 1 know them — are not German in character. It is important that the ballad texts have no special type of tune — ballads and lyrical texts were sung to one kind of tune. II is important that the errata should not be forgotten ! I would like the following to receive copies of my book: Revue Musicale (editor Henri Prunières) Paris VI. 3J—37. Pue Madame. II Pianoforte (ed. Guido Gatti) Torino, Via San Tomaso, 2!). Muzyka (ed. Mateusz Glinski) Wars/.awa, Kapucynska 13. Anbruch, Wien, Karlsplatz G. Malien Slovenskd, Turciansky Svaty Martin (Cesko-Slovensko) Aeadcmiu Românû, Bucuresti Mr. M. D. Calvocoressi,

4 G Paulton's Square, London, SW. 3. Mr. H. J. Foss,

s Amen Corner, London E. C. 4. (Oxford University Press) 4 Calvocoressi. Michel David (1877—1044). a musical author and critic of French extraction. His essays on tlic works of Debussy, Bartok and Mussorgsky are particularly valuable. 5 Foss, Hubert James (1899—1053). a British musical author and composer, founder of the Oxford Bach Cantata Club. 13