Béla Bartók

Rumanian Folk Dances

Bartók himself collected the material for Rumanian Dances in Transylvania at the beginning of the century; Transylvania is the place in which this folk-dance music is part of everyday life. Bartók considered this music so very valuable that it became his new source of renewal of the musical mother tongue. This music was of a new nature; it sounded strange to ears that were used to the classical tradition and consequently necessitated a possibly exact specification of the musical articulation in order to reproduce the character of the folk dances as accurately as possible.
When transcribing this work - which was originally composed for the piano - for two guitars, the publisher left Bartók's instructions (tempo, dynamics, staccato, tenuto, slurs) unchanged. This seemed to be indispensable to achieve a reproduction of the folk dances true to their character.