Abstract
The peasant music Béla Bartók first discovered in 1904 and which he collected systematically between 1906 and 1918 belongs to what he generally described as “Eastern Europe.” His career as pianist and composer was naturally oriented towards Western Europe. His contract with one of the most important publishing houses of the period interested in contemporary music, Universal Edition in Vienna, seems to have conserved a Central European network during the interwar period – a network originating in the by then dissolved Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Apart from pointing out the conspicuous contrast between Bartók's concept of Eastern Europe and his Central European position as an intellectual, this article revisits a particular historic event, the new music festival organized in April, 1938 in Baden-Baden, to examine Bartók's concept through his art and careful politics during a period of heightened tensions. Since the premiere of his Second Piano Concerto in Frankfurt in January, 1933, Bartók had avoided giving concerts in Nazi Germany. When invited to offer a piece for the 1938 festival he proposed Five Hungarian Folk Songs for voice and orchestra (1933). Despite his initial consent, however, he later tried to withdraw the work and forbid its performance shortly before the start of the festival; in the end his work did remain in the program despite his protest. His peculiar strategy on this occasion seems to have been prompted by his dispute with the German copyright office (STAGMA), which categorized his works in which he used folk melodies as mere arrangements, declaring them unoriginal. It appears that Bartók might have consciously offered such a “questionable” work to demonstrate its originality. At the same time, however, it seems that this particular set might have had a special topical message, too. Starting with a deeply-felt composition based on a song considered to belong to the most ancient layers of indigenous Hungarian folk music, it ends with a grotesque arrangement of a folk song which Bartók described as of Western, probably German, origin. One might wonder whether it was intentional to offer a narrative that contrasts the values of indigenous East European folklore with the shallowness of Western, specifically German, influence. The Appendix of the article presents an English translation of Bartók's notes about his composition sent to the organizers of the Baden-Baden festival.
Béla Bartók's life and work, especially his folkloristic research that extended to almost all ethnicities (nations and minorities) of the region,1 can justifiably be considered representative as well as unusually comprehensive of the geographic area we variously name Central or Eastern or Central Eastern Europe and its very cultural spirit. While his career as pianist and composer was necessarily and inextricably linked to Western Europe, he considered himself to be a representative of Eastern Europe – both in the subject of his research and in his concept of the national artistic character embodied in peasant repertories on the one hand and in what was casually called at the time “new Hungarian art music” on the other.2 Whereas Central Europe, the key topic of both the conference and the study group to which the present essay wishes to contribute, might be significant in Bartók's biography, it may not have played any decisive role in his thinking or theorization. No doubt his Vienna-based publisher between 1918 and 1940, a Central European institution, had a major role in his career and in the propagation of his work in Western Europe. The object of his research, folk songs collected in Hungary, was considered to be part of a tradition of Eastern Europe. As a matter of fact, the wording of one of his lectures held in 1941 at Wells College in the United States, “Lecture on Central European Folk Song,” must be regarded as exceptional, indeed almost a mistake. The usual wording, as in a similar program at Stanford University, was “Lecture on Eastern European Folk Song.”3
The geographical and cultural sphere called Central Europe was, however, not missing from Bartók's vocabulary; he occasionally did speak about it quite specifically. When, for instance, he gave a lecture in Vienna in 1932 about folk music and its influence on higher art music, he started his speech with the question: “What is folk music?” To explain how challenging it was to define, he remarked: “It is all the more difficult to give an answer because in Western and Central Europe not exactly the same is understood by folk music as in Eastern Europe.”4 It is quite obvious, then, that he considered his German-speaking audience in Vienna as belonging to Central Europe. At the same time their culture and thinking were necessarily part of Western Europe. How easily and necessarily the two merge can also be seen in another revealing formulation by Bartók when he, in an article on Romanian folk music, emphasizes its peculiarities to Western ears: “Suffice it to say that a few of their general characteristics will seem strange, certainly, to a Western or Central European.”5 In contrast, he considered himself just like the subject of his scientific investigation, i.e. musical folklore, Eastern European.
I must mention now a Viennese composer, J. Hauer, who wrote very strange music, and who claimed to be the real and only atonal composer – he, not Schoenberg. You see, there was a veritable competition in Central Europe about who was the most genuine atonalist.6
Thus, while Vienna was in Central Europe, Budapest seems to have already been part of Eastern Europe. The difference of the language certainly also played an important role in this distinction.
How far the composer's thinking was actually defined by a contrast, even an opposition, between “East” and “West” that left actually little room for a “Middle,” might be shown by the strange story of the surprising, as well as intriguing, guest appearance in Nazi Germany of Bartók's single set of orchestral songs, Five Hungarian Folk Songs for voice and orchestra, originally composed as part of Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs in 1929 for voice and piano and selected and orchestrated in 1933.
Between April 22 and 25, 1938, a festival of international new music was organized in Baden-Baden. The program of the first orchestral concert on the opening day featured Bartók's Five Hungarian Folk Songs as a German premiere (Fig. 1). After being approached by the main organizer, conductor Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1903–1975),7 the work was in fact chosen by the composer and seemingly willingly offered for the program. The composer did not only offer the work; he even provided a short introductory text on it for the program brochure. The composer's own notes to the work appear to underline his support for the whole event. Interestingly, though, he tried to revoke the work from the program shortly before the start of the festival, in which, by the way, he never even considered participating as he categorically avoided travelling to Germany after January, 1933. The immediate reason for revoking the work was the final decision of STAGMA,8 the German copyright bureau, according to which folk song arrangements were regarded as second-rate compositions (with a significantly lower royalty rate). Bartók's more generally formulated reaction to the ruling was thus only dated March 28, 1938.9 But he also informed Lessing directly about the withdrawal of his work from the festival program.10 Thus, Bartók's five orchestral songs were heard at the Baden-Baden festival despite the protest of the composer, and he did all he could to make the situation public.11 Although STAGMA's final decision was not announced until shortly before the concert, Bartók had been in a long argument with them – through the Austrian copyright bureau (AKM) – since mid-November 1937, just before he was first contacted by conductor Lessing.12 This is why the intriguing possibility should also be considered whether the choice of the work offered for the festival was a conscious provocation on the part of the composer.
Program of the first orchestral concert of the Baden-Baden music festival, April 22, 1938
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Bartók last appeared in Germany in January, 1933 as soloist at the premiere of his Second Piano Concerto in Frankfurt. From then on, he did not accept any invitation and did not encourage performances of his works in that country.13 The fact that he seems to have been willing to negotiate the performance of one of his works at the Baden-Baden festival might appear unusual as well as inconsistent. On the other hand, the festival also featured Stravinsky's Persephone side by side with works by composers from different European countries and was still held one month before the infamous “Entartete Musik” exhibition, which opened on May 24, 1938 at Düsseldorf.
My aim here is not to discuss Bartók and the Third Reich, a topic that has already been addressed enlighteningly by János Breuer.14 Neither is it my intention to repeat information on Bartók's careful but fully determined arguments with STAGMA, about which all important primary documents were collected and published by László Somfai half a century ago.15 Rather, I wish to look at some of the characteristics of Bartók's important set of five folk song arrangements, a work he offered for a Nazi music festival and then tried to withdraw from the program but which was still performed in the end. Perhaps the work itself might reveal some of the composer's less obvious motifs.
No. 1, “In Prison,” starts the set on a particularly sombre note stating immediately in resignation: “All people live fortunately/Only I live so bitterly.” With its relentless monotony, a 20-measure-long ostinato (Example 1) suggests the basic idea: forced confinement. It even continues to the beginning of the second of the total of five stanzas. In contrast to the E-Dorian original folk melody of the song, which lacks conspicuously the F♯ of the Dorian scale (Example 2), the ostinato itself is purely pentatonic (also indicated in Example 1). Its frame is provided by the B (dominant) octave, as if complementing the E octave frame of the melody. Folk melody and ostinato accompaniment are intricately interlocked while a basic contrast between the “neutrality” of the ostinato and the “individuality” of the melody is maintained. The ostinato is, however, soon “disturbed” and “upset” by the “onomatopoeic” sound of what Bartók himself calls in his explanation “drops of tear” (Example 3). Its repeated appearance is metrically completely incalculable; a recurring pattern only develops by the end of the second stanza. In the orchestral version, the tear drops are sounded by the flute and the clarinet playing major or minor second dissonances. Its metric incalculability also enhances a feeling of hopelessness. At the same time, its impossibility to fit into the rigid musical background is expressive of the soliloquizing protagonist's (the lyric subject's) own foreignness in these surroundings. When the text starts to describe the prison at the beginning of the third stanza, a characteristic soundscape of the strings, reminiscent of the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, can be heard in the orchestral version, which makes the prison look similar to the dark and threatening castle (Example 4). From then on, the accompaniment develops into being ever more richly illustrative of the hopelessly bleak scene.
Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, no. 1 “In Prison,” mm. 1–4
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, no. 1 “In Prison,” the first stanza of the folk song
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, no. 1 “In Prison,” “tear drops” motif
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Duke Bluebeard's Castle, ostinato representing the castle from Fig. 19+6
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
The character and atmosphere of the opening song, especially due to its affinity with Duke Bluebeard's Castle, suggest deeply personal experience and self-expression. The set leads from this suffering subjective voice to the conspicuously foreign tone full of rough and loud mockery in no. 5, the second of two “mating” songs.
The text of the fifth song describes a merry event, a feast indeed, albeit with the unmistakable tinge of a parody. A frog is roasted for the repast. Two guests are described respectively in the second and third stanzas. One of them arrives in time and can eat a frog-leg. However, the other arrives too late and can only have the frog's bottom. The second half of each stanza is occupied by a funny-sounding, more or less incomprehensible refrain.
As the arrangement starts with a rather ordinary sounding instrumental introduction in G major, a simple but almost insulting gesture in unison, the listener may suspect that the joke will be uncouth (Example 5). In fact, it is the suggestiveness of the music rather than the text itself that makes the presentation of the song so coarse. It is interesting to realize that the inflections of the notes of the scale (F♯ after F, C♯, G♯) make the impression of “wrong” and “out-of-tune” notes; they are never to be mistaken for the passionate search for new sounds by a lover of experiments. The punchline, i.e. the late arrival, is actually suggested in advance by the marcato closing motif in low register, left alone and sounding something like a thoroughly indecent – scatological – effect. The character in the more developed orchestral version can once again remind us of other works by Bartók, especially when the low wind instruments recall the parody of the Austrian army (the distorted quotation of the Austrian anthem) in the Kossuth Symphonic Poem (Example 6). At the same time the orchestral song also points to a similar effect in the “Intermezzo interrotto” of the later Concerto for Orchestra. (The “scatological” nature of the music was first and very convincingly pointed out by Klára Móricz.)16 The “coarse,” “rude” tone that characterizes the mocking reception of the belatedly arriving guest might astonish the listener of this passage. The roughness also characterizes the delivery of the text where the indecent word –“bottom”– is delayed to have, in the end, maximum effect when it is finally pronounced (that is, when it finally “arrives”). The indecent word is emphasized not only by rallentando molto but also by espressivo (Example 7). Thus, completely in contrast with the first song where the accompaniment naturally grows out of the folk melody chosen as a “motto” or “epigraph” for the arrangement, here the accompaniment is rude and proceeds “against” the melody which is itself built on trite motifs. But what does this mockery have to do with the lofty genre of German orchestral song?
Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, no. 12 “Mating Song (2),” introduction
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Kossuth Symphonic Poem (1904), Section 8, mm. 296–297
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs, no. 12 “Mating Song (2),” the “punch line”
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
As mentioned before, the five movements of the orchestral version were selected from a longer set, Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs for voice and piano, composed in 1929. Although the exact inspiration for the orchestration, which was intended, as it appears from the beginning, for the alto singer Mária Basilides, one of Bartók's regular concert partners, is not clear, it was first performed at a festive concert held on October 23, 1933, to commemorate 80 years of the Hungarian Philharmonic Society.17 Five Hungarian Folk Songs might be considered in a way a particularly succinct version, the essence, as it were, of the Twenty Songs, despite the conspicuous lack of representation of what was called the New Style (Class B) of Hungarian folk songs. The original set was composed as a representative selection of Hungarian folk song types – as Vera Lampert has pointed out.18 It largely followed and reflected Bartók's scholarly system developed for the classification of Hungarian peasant melodies.19 At the same time, the arrangements continued to use the most developed modernist style of the composer with the inclusion of original folk melodies that he had developed in the Eight Improvisations (1920) for piano. No wonder that in his introductory text, according to its original wording, Bartók emphasizes that “[t]hese works are not ‘arrangements’ but rather original compositions with Hungarian folk songs from my own collection placed upon them like mottos.”
The 5 melodies can be described from a scholarly point of view in the following way: no. 1 is among the documents of the oldest layer of Hungarian folk music (originating on the edge of Asia, from where it was brought more than 1000 years ago and has been preserved up to the present); no. 2 is also fairly old and no. 3 [recte: 4] is more recent, but to define their exact origin has so far been impossible; nos. 4 [recte: 3] and 5 are likely of Western origin and especially no. 5 is almost certainly of German origin.
As a matter of fact, nos. 2 and 3 should be understood as referring to nos. 2 and 4, and nos. 4 and 5 must thus refer to nos. 3 and 5. Bartók's mistake is easily understandable from changes in the order of the songs in the orchestral version as compared to the original Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs.21
From Bartók's description it is clear that the first and last songs represent two extremes regarding their origin. Their text and sharply different folkloristic function also emphasize the same distinction. Thus Bartók's arrangement, especially in its more elaborate and more expressive orchestral version, seems only to heighten this original difference.
Could we then suggest that, using the emphatically German genre of the orchestral song cycle, Bartók wished to demonstrate some narrative in his offer for the Baden-Baden festival? He certainly pointed quite sharply to the difference between what he considered more valuable and less so, what he regarded within the folk tradition not only old but also more “original” (indigenous) and what he could prove with scientific means to be “borrowing” (of Western and specifically German origin). It might not be accidental that just a month after the Baden-Baden festival he entered in a guest book in Hungarian – as if expressing in words what he had committed to music – “Three timely wishes in May 1938: Liberation from German ideological, economic, and cultural influences!”22
Works Cited
Breuer, János. “Bartók im Dritten Reich,” Studia Musicologica 36/3–4 (1995), 263–284.
Bónis, Ferenc. Béla Bartók: Pictures of a Life, transl. by Judith Sollosy (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2016).
Demény, János (ed.). Béla Bartók Letters, transl. by Péter Balabán and István Farkas (Budapest: Corvina, 1971).
Lampert, Vera. “Népdalfeldolgozás-sorozatok rendezése: fogalmazvány és végleges forma Bartók Húsz magyar népdalában,” [Arrangement of folk song settings: Draft and final form of Bartók’s Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs] in Zenetudományi Dolgozatok 1978–2012, ed. by Gábor Kiss (Budapest: MTA BTK Zenetudományi Intézet, 2014), 265–280.
Móricz, Klára. “The Untouchable: Bartók and the Scatological,” Studia Musicologica 47/3–4 (2006), 321–336.
Somfai, László. “Eine Erklärung Bartóks aus dem Jahre 1938,” in Documenta Bartókiana 4, ed. by Denijs Dille (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970).
Suchoff, Benjamin (ed). Béla Bartók: Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1976).
Tallián, Tibor (ed.). Bartók Béla írásai, vol. 1 (Budapest: Zeneműkiadó, 1989).
Appendix I: English translation of Bartók's letter to the organizers of the 1938 Baden-Baden music festival
Budapest, February 10, 1938
To the Music Directorate, Spa Administration, Baden-Baden
Dear Sirs,
I have just been able to find the time to answer your letter since I returned from a longer journey abroad at the beginning of February
Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs at my disposal, so I can only send you the two pictures I have submitted you last year (which you did not use at the time).
I can write the following about the 5 songs:
I composed “20 Hungarian Folk Songs” for piano and voice in 1929. These works are not “arrangements” but rather original compositions with Hungarian folk songs from my own collection placed upon them like mottos. In 1933, the Philharmonic Society celebrated its 80th jubilee and asked me to offer them a new work for the jubilee concert. I transcribed 5 of the above-mentioned songs for orchestra and voice and it [i.e. the work] was then indeed premiered at the jubilee concert in November, 1933.
The mood or character of each song is derived from the mood of the given folk song: even word-painting in the old sense is occasionally used (e.g., “tear drops” in no. 1, “whip blows and clinking sound” in no. 4 [recte: no. 3].
The 5 melodies can be described from a scholarly point of view in the following way: no. 1 is among the documents of the oldest layer of Hungarian folk music (originating on the edge of Asia, from where it was brought more than 1000 years ago and has been preserved up to the present); no. 2 is also fairly old and no. 3 [recte: 4] is more recent, but to define their exact origin has so far been impossible; nos. 4 [recte: 3] and 5 are likely of Western origin and especially no. 5 is almost certainly of German origin.
With kind regards,
Béla Bartók
Ps. 1. Please take from my description as much and whatever you think necessary.
2. You do not need to return the photos.
3. I have not really had time to write a curriculum vitae but you can take data from a dictionary.
Appendix II: English translation of the short curriculum vitae and an edited version of Bartók's notes to Five Hungarian Folk Songs as published in the concert booklet for the April 22, 1938 concert in Baden-Baden (cf. Fig. 2)
Introduction to Bartók's Five Hungarian Folk Songs for voice and orchestra in the concert brochure of the Baden-Baden music festival
Citation: Studia Musicologica 65, 1-2; 10.1556/6.2024.00004
BELA BARTOK
was born in 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary. After his studies with Kersch, Erkel and at the Academy of Music he joined this institution as a teacher. His works include piano pieces, songs, chamber music, piano concertos with orchestra, works for orchestra, an opera “Duke Bluebeard's Castle” and a comprehensive research and collecting activity in the field of Hungarian folk music.
The “Five Hungarian Folk Songs” were taken from a collection of 20 Hungarian folk songs for piano and voice. They are not arrangements but original compositions, even though old folk songs are used in them. The five songs which will be performed were orchestrated for the 80th jubilee of the Hungarian Philharmonic in November 1933 and were premiered at the festive concert.
The mood and character of the individual songs are derived from the given text, even word-painting in the old sense is used (e.g., tear drops in no. 1, whip blows and clinking sound in no. 4 [recte: no. 3].
No. 1 is among the documents of the oldest layer of Hungarian folk music (originating on the edge of Asia, from where it was brought more than one thousand years ago and has been preserved up to the present).
Nos. 2 and 3 [recte: 4] are also old, even though of still unidentified origin.
Nos. 4 [recte: 3] and 5 are most likely of Western and in all probability (namely no. 5) even of German origin.
This is not the place where the concept of nation and minority in the early twentieth century could be discussed, and, in any case I might not be adequately prepared to do so, but I do feel it necessary to point out that the general bypassing in folkloristic research of certain very different ethnic groups like the Gypsies or the Jews, with significant presence in and contribution to Hungary, should be discussed on its own. Here, it is perhaps sufficient to point out that Bartók was looking for supposedly ancient cultural strata in social groups, especially peasantry but also shepherds and the like who were linked to the still existing primitive occupations and consciously avoided potentially migrating groups with different social roles.
The concept of a “new” national musical style for different nations was especially current in the journalistic language of the period and was quite naturally adopted, used and even endorsed by Bartók. His awareness of the simplification, even distortion, in such a “marker” is, however, quite obvious in his early article, “On Hungarian Music” (1911), in SUCHOFF (ed.), Bartók: Essays, 301–303, in which he states that a “national” style is naturally derived from the distinct style of individuals.
See program bills, in the collection of the Budapest Bartók Archives, for lectures on October 28, 1941 at Wells College, Aurora, and November 26, 1941 at Stanford University.
See BARTÓK, “Volksmusik und ihre Bedeutung für die neuzeitliche Komposition” (1932), in TALLIÁN (ed.), Bartók Béla írásai 1, 250. Essays does not have this version of Bartók's lecture. The closest text, “What is Folk Music?” (1931), in SUCHOFF (ed.), Bartók: Essays, 5, is based on an earlier version of the lecture written in Hungarian and addressed to Hungarian audiences, and so the special reference to the difference in conception between Central and Eastern European does not appear there.
BARTÓK, “Romanian Folk Music” (1933), in SUCHOFF (ed.), Bartók: Essays, 124.
BARTÓK, “Harvard Lectures” (1943), in SUCHOFF (ed.), Bartók: Essays, 365.
See Gotthold Ephraim Lessing to Bartók, November 22, 1937. This letter, the invitation to Bartók to contribute to the Baden-Baden festival, is printed, together with a number of relevant documents including their complete correspondence, in the notes to SOMFAI, “Eine Erklärung,” 153.
STAGMA: Staatlich genehmigte Gesellschaft zur Verwertung musikalischer Urheberrechte.
An English translation of Bartók's “Erklärung” (“Declaration”) would read as follows: “I am shocked to learn that STAGMA … in spite of my objection, made the final decision that those of my works in which folk songs or folk dances as themes are employed should be categorized as mere ‘arrangements.’ My single means to oppose this unjust and senseless procedure, which is only dictated by financial reasons, is to protest against the performance in Germany of any of my works in which folk songs and folk dances are employed and to jeopardize such performances as far as I can. … I am not only forced to make this step because of financial considerations but also and above all for reasons that concern basic principles and music.” Cf. SOMFAI, “Eine Erklärung,” 148.
Although only a draft of Bartók's relevant letter has been published, Lessing's desperate answer, dated April 1, 1938, is extant, and thus it is obvious that Bartók did send a letter to him revoking his composition. The very ironic wording of Bartók's draft is also worth quoting here in translation: “I am very sorry for having to inform you, but it is obviously also in the interest of your festive concerts to present only original works rather than ‘arrangements of one-third value.’ I thought that with the 5 Orchestral Songs I would be able to offer you a work of full value. Please accept my apology for my ‘mistake’ – STAGMA has opened our eyes; so I have to insist that my work should not be performed.” See the German original and Lessing's reply in SOMFAI, “Eine Erklärung,” 157–158.
See Bartók's letter to Annie Müller-Widmann, April 13, 1938, in DEMÉNY (ed.), Béla Bartók Letters, 269.
Lessing's letter of invitation was dated November 22, 1937, whereas Bartók's first letter to the Austrian copyright bureau was dated November 17, 1937. He had thus already been involved in the debate, if indirectly through AKM, with STAGMA when he received Lessing's invitation. Cf. SOMFAI, “Eine Erklärung,” 148 and 153.
In actual fact he very rarely travelled through Germany at all; one exception was in early 1938 when he referred to his waiting for a train connection there (“not of my own choice”) to his friend, composer Sándor (Alexander) Albrecht; see letter of January 31, 1938, DEMÉNY (ed.), Béla Bartók Letters, 264.
BREUER, “Bartók im Dritten Reich,” 263–284.
Somfai's article reprints the complete file prepared by Bartók including his “Declaration” and five enclosures, letters and the list of his works, according to genre, employing folk songs and folk dances. Bartók prepared several duplicates of this file, sending them to institutions (such as his publisher, Universal Edition) and persons (such as Mrs. Annie Müller-Widmann). See SOMFAI, “Eine Erklärung,” 148–151 (the file) and 152–164 (Somfai's explanatory notes and additional pieces of correspondence in chronological order between November 22, 1937 and May 24, 1938).
MÓRICZ, “The Untouchable,” 321–336.
Bartók first mentions the orchestrated set in his letter to Universal Edition, September 5, 1933. According to earlier minutes of a meeting at the offices of Universal Edition, dated August 22 (?), 1931, Basilides was interested in having all Twenty Hungarian Folk Songs orchestrated but, according to Somfai's catalogue of Bartók's works, in preparation and available at the Budapest Bartók Archives, there is no sign of Bartók's having worked on the orchestration before 1933.
See LAMPERT, “Népdalfeldolgozás-sorozatok,” 265–280.
See Ibid., 273, where Lampert shows in Table 1 the systematic order of folk song types that largely follow an assumed historical chronology from Old Style through Mixed Songs to New Style.
For an English translation of the complete text of both Bartók's letter to the organizers, February 10, 1938, containing his program notes and the introduction published in the concert brochure, see Appendix.
Nos. 3 and 5, the two “Mating Songs” (“Nuptial Serenade” and “Humorous Song”), follow one after the other in the original set (nos. 11 and 12), whereas in the orchestral version no. 4 (“Complaint,” no. 14 in the original set) was inserted between them. This is obviously the reason why Bartók gave the wrong numbers within the orchestral set of the relevant songs. That he mistakenly but consistently called no. 3 “no. 4” and the other way round in his notes is also corroborated by his comments on the use of word-painting which, according to his notes, appears in nos. 1 and 4 but in reality word-painting appears in no. 1 (“In Prison”) and in no. 3 (“Nuptial Serenade”).
Entry in Ákos Weress's keepsake album, in DEMÉNY (ed.), Béla Bartók Letters, 270. Cf. a reproduction in BÓNIS, Béla Bartók, 412.
