As piquant and pungent as paprika is the music of Béla Bartók, Hungary's highest-browed composer. During the past fortnight, with the U. S. musical season well along in the salad course, many a concert program was well sprinkled with Bartók. Diffident, wispy, grey, Béla Bartók himself was visiting the U. S., for the second time in his 59 years, looking unlike the way his severe works sound.
In Washington, at a reverent chamber-music festival, Composer Bartók at the piano collaborated with an eminent friend and compatriot, Violinist Joseph Szigeti (pronounced zig-get´ty), in his First Rhapsody and Second Sonata. The same pair gave...