Frasi di Béla Bartók

citato in AA.VV., Il libro della musica classica, traduzione di Anna Fontebuoni, Gribaudo, 2019, p. 271. ISBN 9788858022894

"The Folk Songs of Hungary" in Pro Musica VII (October 1928)
Contesto: 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.