AN UNFAMILIAR SIDE TO BARTÓK – CHORUSES FOR MALE CHOIR, INTERSPERSED WITH FOLK MUSIC Béla Bartók died 70 years ago, in 1945 in New York. ‘What I most regret is that I have to leave with a full suitcase...’ he said before dying. Only he could know what he had not yet written; all we have to work with is what he left behind him. An anniversary always provokes debate about the relevance of the oeuvre of a great master, and his place in a given era. The Saint Ephraim Male Choir began to work with Bartók’s music in 2007. Over the years it became increasingly clear that all six of his works for male choir (Evening [1903], Four Old Hungarian Folksongs [1910–12], Slovak Folksongs [1917], Four Old Hungarian Folksongs version II [1926], Székely Folksongs [1932] and From Olden Times [1935]) contain music of unparalleled beauty, yet in terms of vocal chamber music, are highly taxing for the performers. The least known area of Bartók’s musical legacy is his choral works, including the six male choruses. He wrote the first when he was 22 and the last when he was 54: these compositions run almost throughout his composing career – from the youthful post-Romantic blooming, through his folksong arrangements based on experiences gained on field trips, which influenced his whole life and outlook, to one of the greatest works ever written for male choir: a chorus suite entitled From Olden Times. After seven years of preparation by artistic director Tamás Bubnó and the 16 singers, the time seems ripe to present an unfamiliar side of this great Hungarian genius, to both his compatriots and the world at large. For Bartók’s male choruses draw directly on the melodic world of Hungarians and the other peoples of the Carpathian Basin, but their message is universal, deep, and they speak to us all: a man has his place in the world; his prayers, struggles, feelings, thoughts, fears, love, mortality and strength swell, pulsate and surge within us. Between Bartók’s works we hear authentic folk music and an extension of it, which gives an insight into the sources, the musical and psychological experiences that may have touched the composer on his field trips: these are played by Balázs Szokolay Dongó on the bagpipes, recorder, and tárogató, with the participation of members of the Saint Ephraim Male Choir.