Open an introductory music history textbook at the section on Béla Bartók and you will find references to his deep patriotism, his folk-music research, and the relationships between these interests and his compositions. What you will not usually find, despite the weight placed on Bartók's connections to his environment, are many references to the people in that environment other than fellow composer Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) and the nebulous ‘folk’ – sometimes only the folk. While Schoenberg is associated with both Berg and Webern, and Stravinsky with Rimsky-Korsakov and Diaghilev, Bartók is usually depicted in English texts as an isolated naïf from the provinces. Since folk art and work influenced by it are often viewed as nostalgic, we could conclude that Bartók was a conservative longing for the past.

The historical record shows us something far more complex. After about 1904, Bartók seems to have thought of himself as much more of a radical than a reactionary. He stopped going to church, attempted to shock wealthy hosts, was called an anarchist by his friends, and railed against misconceptions of the peasantry. The heritage of nineteenth-century Hungary, the political environment of early twentieth-century Budapest, the resulting polarization of intellectual and cultural groups, and the progressive musicians with whom he associated (including prominent Jewish musicians), all had an impact on his views. His symphonic poem, Kossuth, of 1903 was the musical culmination of the chauvinist-nationalist views he held in his conservatoire years and immediately thereafter.