LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 32 In the past couple of centuries, thousands of visitors have descended on the small village of Saranac Lake nestled deep in the heart of the Adirondack mountains. Some came for the natural beauty and outdoor activi- ties like hiking, camping, fishing, boating, and the like. Many more came to improve their health by breathing the crisp, clean air. They came from all walks of life: young and old, poor and wealthy, unknown and famous. Ask any Saranac Laker to name the famous visitors and everyone will mention Robert Louis Stevenson. He came in the 1880's with severe respiratory issues and left eight months later restored to health. Most will know also that Albert Einstein spent many summers in the 1930's and 40's happily sailing his boat on Low- er Saranac Lake. And a few may know that Mark Twain spent the summer of 1901 in a camp on Ampersand Bay with his wife and two daughters. But only classical mu- sic lovers are likely to recognize the name of one of the village's most esteemed visitors: Béla Bartók. Bartók was born in Hungary in 1881 and, by the age of fifty, had established himself as one of Europe's most well-known composers. Equally important to him, though, was his interest in collecting native folk songs. He and his compatriot Zoltán Kodály traveled through- out central Europe with an early version of a phono- graph, visiting peasants and recording onto cylinders every song they could hear. But in the 1930s, life in Hungary began to grow dark. Bartók detested what he saw of the rise of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. He was outspoken with his anti-fascist views, and it did not help that his wife Ditta, a former piano student of his, was Jewish. In Oc- tober 1940, only a month before Hungary declared an alliance with Nazi Germany, he and Ditta reluctantly left their homeland for America. The Bartóks settled in New York City, and Béla re- ceived a small research grant from Columbia Univer- sity to begin cataloging their collection of folk songs. Soon, however, his health began to decline, and by 1942, he was suffering from an unrelenting fever. His doctor in New York, Edgar Mayer, was also the director of the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, an establishment for vaudeville and film entertainers suffering from tuberculosis. Dr. Mayer recommended that Bartók should seek treatment in that village. In the summer of 1943, he boarded a train for the journey. In the three years since leaving Hungary, Bartók had composed no new music and it is not hard to imagine why. Besides being in ill health, he and Ditta were bare- ly scraping by on his limited income, and he was heart- broken by the war raging in the land he had left be- hind. But good things were starting to happen. Shortly before leaving New York City he was visited by Serge Koussevitsky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Or- chestra, who gave him a commission to compose a new piece. The money from the commission was certainly welcome, as was the recognition that he would receive as an artist in his new country. Arriving in Saranac Lake, he found lodging in a small cottage on Park Avenue owned by Mrs. Margaret Sage- man, a nurse who cared for tuberculosis patients. He was rather disappointed by the Adirondack mountains. During his life in Europe, one of his great pleasures was hiking in the Alps. He once said that his ideal altitude for healthy breathing was 6,000 feet. But Saranac Lake lies only 1,600 feet above sea level, and Mount Baker — which he described as "a hill" — rises only 800 feet above that. Still, he did climb it, and his health improved during his stay that summer and fall. What he certainly found in this summer retreat was something he could not have in the bustling city: the peace and quiet he needed to compose music. By the end of his stay in Saranac Lake that year, he had finished the work for the Koussevitsky commis- sion. The piece he composed, which he titled "Concerto for Orchestra," was premiered in Boston in December 1944 and repeated at Carnegie Hall in New York City the following January. In the years since, it has become Béla Bartók and the Healing Power of Saranac Lake By Dr. John Curtis Top: Béla with his wife Ditta. Photo credit: Historic Saranac Lake Above: The desk and a facsimile of the viola concerto Béla com- posed in the cabin. Photo credit: John Curtis

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