Hungarian Sketches

Evening in Transylvania

Bear Dance

Melody

A Bit Tipsy

Swineherd Dance

Bartók’s exhaustive researches into the folk music of Hungary and beyond had far-reaching consequence both for his own development and for that of 20th century music in general. They also resulted in many little pieces, most of them for piano, which aim to do no more than present some of his favourite folk-tune discoveries in simple settings. The Hungarian Sketches are all orchestrations of piano pieces, some of them for children, which are entirely unpretentious and at the same time enchantingly melodious, rhythmically compelling, irresistibly comic and, sometimes, all those things at once.