When Béla Bartók went into the Austro-Hungarian countryside starting in 1906, the folksongs he brought back underlay his compositions in different ways: Some were harmonizations, tart and otherwise, of Christmas carols and the like, while in other works he drew stronger stuff from the melodies he distilled. In a work such as Contrasts, written in 1938 for Benny Goodman, Joszef … [Read more...]