What distinguishes Béla Bartók from most of his European contemporaries is his lifelong dedication to folk music. He began to look into Hungarian peasant music out of musical interest only, but gradually extended his research to the neighbouring countries' folk music to study relatedness and differences, origins and influences. Bartók started to collect Romanian folk tunes in 1908, in 1915 he adapted them to be played on the piano – his "Romanian Christmas Carols" (UE 5890).

This edition of s...