Two events celebrating Bartók took place during the week before the re-inauguration. A presentation by the Australian musician Malcolm Gillies, author of the book Bartók in Britain, and by the Hungarian music historian Péter Laki, author of Bartók and His World, was organised on Wednesday by the Hungarian Cultural Centre London, the British-Hungarian Friendship Society and honourary chairman of the Peter Warlock Society Malcolm Rudland. On Friday, a concert of works by Bartók, Peter Warlock and Henry Purcell took place in St. Peter?s Church on Eaton Square.
The statue was first erected in October 2004 as the result of a joint effort by the Warlock Society and the Hungarian Cultural Centre London. It was put in storage as the surrounding public space underwent a renovation.
The statue is the work of the Kossuth Prize and Herder Prize winner Imre Varga, whose other Bartók sculptures can be seen in the garden of the Bartók memorial house in Budapest and in Bartók Square in Brussels.
The statue is only about 200 metres from the flat in which Bartók stayed when he visited London: 7 Sydney Place. Bartók visited the United Kingdom 14 times between 1922 and 1937.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
