Carl S Leafstedt

A Thorn in the Rosebush. The American Bartok Estate and Archives During the Cold War, 1946-67 Carl S Leafstedt

This book opens up new perspectives on the history of Béla Bartók's music in the 20th century. It joins a growing literature on music and the cultural Cold War. It draws inspiration from a trove of historic correspondence discovered in Massachusetts in 2010, written by Béla Bartók's executor and trustee, Victor Bator. Bator, an accomplished Hungarian-American businessman, had been personally appointed to this role by the composer. He fulfilled his charge honorably, using his court-backed authority to fend off challenges hurled against him by Hungarian government attorneys eager to wrest Bartók's legacy from New York City and return it to Budapest. Epic transcontinental legal battles dragged on for decades, locking the Bartók Estate in bitter conflict. Unpublished letters from Bator's desk form the starting point for the book, which weaves them into a larger story of one man's battle to keep the American Bartók Estate and Archives from falling into

Communist hands during the Cold War.