Bartok Archives Studies in Musicology – serie

n the first volume of Rumanian Folk Music (Instrumental Melodies) I portions of Bela Bart6k's subsequently-discarded preface, concern­ ing the fate of his folklore publications, are presented in explanation of the editorial processes necessary for achieving the publication. 1 By way of introduction to this revised edition of a previous, although in­ complete, published version of the Rumanian Carols and Christmas Songs (Colinde), we refer again to the author's suppressed lines which pertain to this volume: The second publication by the same publisher was to include my collection of Rumanian Colindas (Winter-solstice songs). Their extremely interesting texts were supposed to appear in original as well as in English. After several years of delay, the translation to English prose was completed, one part in adequate archaic English, the rest (by someone else) in most unsuitable Kitchen-English. The publisher did not wish to change this, though. Result: I published the book at my own expense; however, only the musical part, because of lack of sufficient funds. The texts are still in manuscript, even today. 2 Our primary aim, therefore, has been to unite the Rumanian poetic texts and translations with the musical part, in one volume, as was the desire of the author.

he wealth and variety of artistic creations evolved by the Ru- T manian people in the course of the centuries have long alerted the interest of foreign scholars whom circumstances brought to the lands of the Rumanians. The Polish chronicler Matthew Stryjcovski (16th century), the Genovese Franco Sivori, secretary of the 16th century reigning prince Petru Cercel, the Magyar poet Balassius (Balassa Balint 16th century), Paul Strassburg, the envoy of Sweden's 17th century King Gustav Adolph, the Silesian poet Martin Opitz (17th century), the German Johannes Troester (17th century), and many others have left us many accounts, often praises, all precious testimonials providing a better knowledge of past times. The first notations of Rumanian popular melodies known to us like- wise go back to the 16th and 17th centuries. The tablatures for organ left by the musician Jan of Lublin, by the Franciscan monk John Caioni, who was of Rumanian origin himself, and by Daniel Speer, and, indeed, those recorded in the manuscript known to musicologists as the Codex Vietoris, are not, however, to be considered as true collections of folklore.Nor do the ten "Walachische Tanze und Lieder" collected and published in Western notation by the Austrian Franz Joseph Sulzer, in the second volume of his Geschichte des Transalpinischen Daciens, das ist: der Wala- chei, M oldau, und Bassarabiens, printed in Vienna in 1781, come under the heading of a folklore collection as we understand the term today.

n several of his writings on folk music Bela Bart6k recalls an incident I that happened to him in 1904 during a visit to a small village in Tran­ 1 syl vania. Quite by chance he heard there an eighteen-year-old Hun­ garian peasant girl singing Hungarian folk songs whose construction was 2 significantly different from the songs he had known until then. This experience appealed to his imagination far deeper than chance oc­ currences usually do. It sparked in him a creative fire that was there­ after to impart to his music certain characteristics that are recognizable today as indigenous to the Bart6kian style of composition. The inspirational value of the incident was rekindled by return trips to Transylvania. During these trips he was not merely listening. He began notating, melodies, building them into a coordinated collection. Soon Bart6k's itinerary took him into villages populated in checkered proximity by both Hungarians and Rumanians, thence into little communities where the population was exclusively Rumanian. There he discovered that their songs were much less, if at all, influenced by the urban civilization of Western Europe than those he had collected in Hungarian villages. In an interview he gave to a Transylvanian newspaper in 1922, Bart6k described the difference between the available Hungarian and Rumanian songs.

he editorial treatment of the second volume of Bela Bart6k's T Rumanian Folk Music is not dissimilar to that applied to Vol. I. The matter of poetic texts here, however, must allow for a sizeable increase in corrigenda and addenda. But first, let us delve into the source material upon which Vol. II is based. THE MANUSCRIPTS The various drafts of Vol. II fall into five basic categories of editorial process: music, texts, notes to the melodies (and texts), preface, and 1 miscellaneous reference material. M usic.-The first draft comprises field recording transcriptions, and notations made on the spot when recording was not possible. Bart6k left behind the bulk of this material when he emigrated to the United States in October, 1940 (The complete poetic text appears together with the music in each transcription).2 The second draft, uncorrected, comprises 304 pages printed by photo­ 3 offset process from master sheets. The third draft, reproduced from 667 pages of master sheets, is 1 All are contained in the New York Bartok Archives (hereinafter referred to as the BA) in envelopes designated by the author as Nos. 82-83, 85-86, 88, 90-97, 100, 102, and 106-107. See fn. 12 of the editorial Preface to Vol. I for the complete listing of the Rumanian folk' music MS.