"Our peasant music, naturally, is invariably tonal, if not always in the sense that the inflexible major and minor system is tonal. (An "atonal" folk-music, in my opinion, is unthinkable.) Since we depend upon a tonal basis of this kind in our creative work, it is quite self-evident that our works are quite pronouncedly tonal in type. I must admit, however, that there was a time when I thought I was approaching a species of twelve-tone music. Yet even in works of that period the absolute tonal foundation is unmistakable."
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Atheists from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesImmigrants to the United StatesComposers from HungaryPianists from Hungary
Original Language: English
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Sources
"The Folk Songs of Hungary" in Pro Musica VII (October 1928)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k
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Béla Bartók
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