A Context for Bela Bartok on the Eve of World War II: The Violin ...

epercussions Spring-Fall 1996
the specifics, however, the main point, the last sentence
(quoted above), was the only one completely highlighted in
boldface in the March 1934 publication.
While Bart6k continued to paint his relationship with
various Hungarian authorities in grim tones <strong>for</strong> some time,
the publication of "Our Folk Music and the Folk Music of
Neighboring Peoples" appears to have planted seeds in a
newly fertile soil that would eventually produce the greatest
appreciation <strong>for</strong> Bart6k's work in Hungary during his
lifetime.27 The first sign of this change was his transfer to
the Academy of Sciences, which, although he had applied
<strong>for</strong> it several years in a row, was finally approved on 27 July
1934, just four months after the appearance of "Our Folk
Music and the Folk Music of Neighboring Peoples."
In spite of the irony of Bart6k withdrawing from the
politics around him by focusing on what was the most politically
charged aspect of his work, and in spite of the fact
that Bart6k seems to have had enough feel <strong>for</strong> politiCs to
win himself the possibility of doing the work he loved, it
would be a mistake to regard Bart6k's folk-music research
itself as having been conducted in the service of a Hungarian
nationalist agenda.28 To the end of his life, Bart6k
26. The essay was originally published as a separate volume of the series
Nepszerii zeneJUzetek (Popular music notebooks), no. 3, ed. Antal Molnar;
reprinted in <strong>Bartok</strong> <strong>Bela</strong> osszegyujtott iTiisai I, ed. Andras Szol1osy
(Budapest: Zenemukiado, 1966), 403-61. The passage quoted is the last
passage in a version dated 15 January 1934. The March publication includes
a postscript based on <strong>Bartok</strong>'s just-completed research in
Bucharest that he implies further strengthens his findings regarding the
unique qualities of Hungarian folk music.
27. On 28 April 1934, in a letter to a German acquaintance who had requested
assistance in arranging concerts in Hungary, <strong>Bartok</strong> reported
wryly: "1 un<strong>for</strong>tunately have no influence . [in Hungary]: my relations
with the Opera are very bad, with Hubay [director of the Academy of
Music] utterly bad, with Dohnanyi [conductor of the Philharmonic
Society] very chilly, with the government quite bad, and I am just on the
verge of having a quarrel with the Radio, though we have never been on
particularly friendly terms." <strong>Bartok</strong> <strong>Bela</strong> levelei, 479.
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