On June 24, 2025, the Institute for Musicology, Budapest, hosted the presentation of two new, related publications: Volume 10 of the Bartók Complete Edition (Folk Song Arrangements for Voice and Piano, edited by Vera Lampert and Viola Biró) and a collection of essays in honor of Vera Lampert (On Bartók, Folk Music, and Music History, edited by Viola Biró and László Vikárius). The two books are closely linked by the honoree of the Festschrift, Vera Lampert, who had been at the staff of the Bartók Archives from 1969 to 1978, and served as music librarian at Brandeis University in Boston from 1983 to 2014.
After a welcome speech by Katalin Kim, deputy director of the Institute of Musicology, László Vikárius, head of the Bartók Archive and editor-in-chief of the Bartók Complete Edition, gave the audience an overview of the history of the series launched by László Somfai, as well as the volumes that have already been published and those currently in preparation.
Published in November 2024, volume 10 contains all of Bartók’s solo songs with piano accompaniment based on folk songs. The book was presented by the editors. Vera Lampert recounted the history of the volume’s creation, from its first draft, prepared with the collaboration of Dorrit Révész, to its final version. She presented the main part of the volume and illustrated the exceptional diversity of Bartók’s folk song arrangements in terms of language, length, and source material. This genre spans four decades of Bartók’s life. The earliest, Székely Folk Song, was written in 1904, while The Husband’s Grief is Bartók’s last completed work.
Viola Biró drew attention to the fact that the volume contains a surprisingly large proportion of works that remained unpublished during Bartók’s lifetime. Nine of the fourteen song cycles have survived in manuscript. These, along with a few previously unknown versions of works, make up the appendix to the volume. Among them are several compositions that Bartók withheld from the public during his lifetime because of their particularly personal content.
The collection of Hungarian and English essays in honor of Vera Lampert was presented by Katalin Komlós, professor emerita at the Liszt Academy, Budapest.
The double book presentation was concluded with a short concert. Former and current pupils of the Liszt Academy, Virág Mórocz, Barbara Noémi Nemes, and Viktor Papp, performed songs selected from the new volume by the editors, including previously unpublished songs and hitherto unknown historical versions of published works.
Ferenc János Szabó played a key role in rehearsing these rarely heard or previously unheard works, and accompanied the singers on the piano.
by Csilla Mária Pintér
