E. Luganskaya, E. Zaitseva

Bela Bartok. The Heritage of the Folklorist

The article discusses the historical and sociocultural reasons for the growing interest in folk art in the twentieth century in European countries: England, Germany, France, Russia, Hungary. The authors of the article presented the periodization of B. Bartok`s many years folklore activity, and also gave an overview of the collection of Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Yugoslavian and Bulgarian ethnomelos collected by the composer. An analytical review of the works of B. Bartok, in particular, “Folk music of Hungary and neighboring peoples”, reveals the historical and stadial concept of Hungarian folklore, formulated by B. Bartok and associated with the terms “old” and “new” songs he introduced. The focus of the article is the composer’s differentiated approach to the processing of folk songs on the example of the collections “Hungarian Folk Songs” together with Kodai and “Eight Hungarian Folk Songs”, as well as its two main types highlighted by B. Bartok. As a result of the analysis of the ethnomusicologist`s activity, the authors conclude that the composer’s many years of fruitful research work in the field of musical folklore makes an undeniable contribution to the study of the genesis of the national Hungarian melos, saturating the music of the 20th century with the ancestral music intonations.

Key words

Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodai, “Eight Hungarian Folk Songs”, “Hungarian Folk Songs”, Bartok in Russia, folk song arrangement, musical folklore and compositional creativity.

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