Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • WINTER 2017 • sai-national.org 22 B C D E G H I J K M N O P BY JAYNE I. HANLIN Bottom up! at is how to read the score of Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 on colored silk banners at the Béla Bartók Memorial House in Budapest, Hungary. ere are no photos allowed inside the building, but an image of its stunning and impressive entrance will forever be etched in my memory. Below the three-story vertical display, there is a ceramic relief map with numbered silver circles indicating locations in the Carpathian mountain region where this composer used a phonograph (an early gramophone with cylinders) to record more than 8,000 folk songs on wax tubes that could be used only once. Each tube was protected in its own cylindrical storage case. On a nearby wall are details for the numbered circles: county, village, and number of songs collected. Bartók's study was extensive and exhaustive. As a result, he was considered a founder of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology. Beginning in 1932, he and his second wife and their son lived in the rented first- floor flat in this house. In October 1940, the three of them emigrated to the United States. He decided it best to leave Hungary then. He needed peace to compose and was anti-fascist. Today's entry to the museum used to lead to the basement kitchen area where the caretaker lived. Now in a small area on this level, you can purchase admission tickets and some musical items. I bought two reasonably-priced information booklets about the composer. e museum's collection is on the two uppermost floors, the top one added during the building's renovation and expansion. As a result of the extra space, the museum can display more of Bartók's personal effects, some never seen before. One wall has a timeline in four languages: Hungarian, English, German, and Japanese. roughout the museum are interesting black-and-white photographs, including ones of his family members, the school where his father was principal, and my favorite — the composer in a wagon on his 1938 tour collecting folksongs in the countryside. A World of Music A World of Music A WORLD OF MUSIC Béla Bartók Memorial House

• Cover