N January 30, 1944, Bela Bart6k, writing from Asheville, North O Carolina, where he had gone to regain his strength after a long period of ill-health in 1943, commented, Here I have started on a very interesting (and, as usual, lengthy) work, the kind I have never done before. Properly speaking, it is not a musical work: I am arranging and writing out fair copies of Rumanian folksong texts'! Although the date has not as yet been established, the first...