Ditta Pásztory - "Mrs. Bela Bartok"

Ditta Pásztory, wife of famed Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, was the daughter of a piano teacher and a graduate of the Budapest Conservatory (1921). In 1922 Ditta went to the Royal Academy of Music to continue studying piano, and it is here where she became a student and later wife of Béla Bartók. Shortly after their marriage, Ditta abandoned her solo career, but continued to act as an occasional accompanist to some of Bela's compositions specifically written for two pianos.

As the political situation worsened in Europe during WWII, Bela and Ditta emigrated to the United States where their work struggled to find popular resonance. Bela and Ditta continued playing together, and together they premiered the Concerto for Two Pianos, the orchestral version of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, on January 31, 1943 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic. This was the last time Béla Bartók would perform in public.

This program features Ditta playing excerpts from Mikrokosmos, a Bartok piece comprised of 153 piano pieces in six volumes, written between 1926 and 1939. Ditta's recording excerpts 24 short pieces from Mikrokosmos; her record begins with #123 and ends with #148-153.
- (130) "Village Joke"
- (136) "Whole-Tone Scales"
- (137) "Unison"
- (141) "Subject and Reflection" [the hands play opposite of each other]
- (142) "From the Diary of a Fly"
- (146) "Ostinato"
- (153) "Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (VI)"

WNYC archives id: 58623