Notes Concerning Bartók's Solo Vocal Music (I)

Extract

September will mark the tenth anniversary of Bartók's death. The excitement provoked by the newness of his art has long since calmed down, and the time now seems convenient to attempt a sober and balanced evaluation of his creative work. It is to be free, of course, of uncritical and unsubstantiated enthusiasm, but equally free of that speculative and aphoristic conscience-searching based on dubious postulates which has recently become fashionable. What is wanted is not a definitive biography—the distance of ten years is too short for that—but a just assessment of the various facets of his music and his personality, and a well-grounded correlation of his art to his life. Though publication of his correspondence began some years ago, little systematic attention has been paid to other documentary evidence of his life and activities.