Page "Béla Bartók" Paragraph 9

In 1908, he and Kodály traveled into the countryside to collect and research old Magyar folk melodies.

Their growing interest in folk music coincided with a contemporary social interest in traditional national culture.

They made some surprising discoveries.

Magyar folk music had previously been categorised as Gypsy music.

The classic example is Franz Liszt's famous Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano, which he based on popular art songs performed by Romani bands of the time.

In contrast, Bartók and Kodály discovered that the old Magyar folk melodies were based on pentatonic scales, similar to those in Asian folk traditions, such as those of Central Asia, Anatolia and Siberia.