CÍMLAP
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CONTENTS, FOREWORD, BLURB |
Contents
Publisher's preface
Preface (by Yehudi Menuhin)
Acknowledgement (by Vilmos Juhász)
Foreword
Introduction (by Sándor Veress)
Part I
Part II
Foreword
This little collection of interviews on Béla Bartók was first published in Hungarian in mimeographed form at the beginning of 1956. It originated as a reaction to the baffling fact that Béla Bartók was given the Communist International Peace Prize posthumously in 1955. This was especially surprising, as - up to that time - Bartók's music has been criticized in the most derogatory terms behind the Iron Curtain.
Professor Juhász, incensed by this hypocritical expropriation, embarked on an extensive consultation with Bartók's surviving acquaintances - most of whom are no longer living. Ten of Bartók's friends, pupils, fellow-musicians and doctors were interviewed. An exciting picture of Bartók emerges from their testimony. His opinions, private passions, and weaknesses are discussed as well as his "transcendentally humanistic", "prophetic", but also "distinctly provoking" personality.
Now one of the most popular modern composers, Bartók in his youth was called "a crazy genius, but a genius" by a friend of Wagner and Liszt. It was in America that his creative spirit reached its final flowering which could be broken only by his long, mortal illness.
The interviewees also dispel the bolshevists' claim in the fifties that Bartók was a precursor of their "socialism", and, had he survived he would have seen his ideals fulfilled by their regime. "A world of terror and lies", this was Bartók's verdict on bolshevism.
After the 1956 Revolution the estimation of Bartók changed fundamentally in Hungary. Today research on him has attained a very high level. Even so, nobody can resurrect Bartók's deceased companions. This little piece of oral history can greatly enhance the composite picture of this noble Hungarian genius.
The Publisher
Blurb
"I found (the book) very touching and more than interesting ... I am an early - indeed, pioneer - admirer of the music of Béla Bartók in the United States. Béla Bartók was a fighting word forty years ago - I should know because I fought my way through that campaign, but I loved his music then, and I still do. It is wonderful how he has become first a fashion and a cult object, and now a classic. What a pity he could not have had some better recognition while he was alive."
Rome, Feb. 18, 1963.
(Katherine Anne Porter)
"This book ... complements a series of details to the general picture of Bartók's American years."
(Sándor Veress)
Professor Vilmos Juhász (1899-1967) was professor of Comparative Cultural History at Szeged University and was the author of numerous works in Hungarian, French and English. He left Hungary in 1948 and subsequently pursued his academic career in the United States. He wrote several studies in English on Bartók, the Populist literary movement which followed in his footsteps, and the Hungarian literature of the same period. His particular field of study was the relationship between religious faith and creativity in the literary arts. His interest in Bartók's music stemmed to a large degree from his examination of the elements of folk culture.