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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2010
The history of nineteenth-century Hungarian art music, like that of England, is mainly one of foreign domination. Although Liszt and his chief national contemporary Ferenc Erkel both gave musical expression to racial consciousness—the one in his employment of popular gypsy airs, the other in a series of patriotic operas—the accumulated weight of German tradition (Liszt) and Italian operatic supremacy (Erkel) was too heavy suddenly to be overthrown. The results, viewed from the standpoint of an indigenous national art, cannot be considered important.
* It is worth pointing out, in view of Bartók's strong political convictions, that this is his only work with anything approaching a political basis. He did not make the mistake of supposing music to be a suitable vehicle for the propagation of political or philosophical theory; indeed, the whole trend of his work is towards an ever-increasing absolutism and a sense of music existing for its own sake. In the works of his last fifteen years there is nothing with ven a pictorial or programmatic basis.
† Only Nos. 1–10 are arranged by Bartók; Nos. 11–20 are Kodály's.
† This work bears the legend “Rev. par Fréderic Delius.” It would be interesting to know by what chain of events Delius, of all composers, came to edit a work by Bartók, and of what his editorial functions consisted.
§ This work appears under a bewildering variety of titles in concert programmes and in the Press. The title given in the score is ‘Musik für Saiteninstrumente, Schlagzeug und Celesta.’ There is no need to call it a suite, as is sometimes done; and ‘Saiteninstrumente’ is surely intended to include harp and piano, thus rendering unnecessary the inclusion of the names of those instruments in an already rather cumbersome title.