Hungarian children’s and folk song arrangements in the collection For Children by Béla Bartók

Abstract

This study is dedicated to Béla Bartók (1881–1945), one of the most significant composers, folk music theorists and pianists of the twentieth century, on the 140th anniversary of his birth. Collections of Hungarian folksongs and children’s song were a particularly important source of inspiration for Bartók in those of his early works for piano composed between 1908 and 1911. Among these the four volumes of For Children from 1908-1909 play an especially significant role. Bartók, as pianist and music teacher, intended this cycle for the beginning years of the study of piano, and as such it remains an invaluable fundamental work. Five children’s song-based works from the first and the second volumes of For Children can be also found in Katalin Forrai’s book Singing in Preschool. These works are easy to sing and to relate to games, and thus they are among the key pieces of standard preschool song collections. Bartók regarded folk music as a phenomenon of natural origin and treated it as valuable and as perfect as the masterpieces of the greatest composers. In the musical education of young children these principles can be appreciated through the enjoyable experience and accomplishment of Hungarian musical language.