Bartók's Last Years

From his third visit to the United States Bartók never returned to Budapest. His remains, in a triple coffin, are buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of the City of New York. This New York represented much of what he sought to avoid all his life; noise, rush, many people and buildings, heavy traffic on the street with its accompanying gasoline, commerce and commercialism, tidal waves of opportunities for the practical-minded in any field, an Eldorado for the opportunist. He knew this New York, this America, from his earlier visits. The dictatorships which surrounded him in Europe, and which he hated—no matter from which side they blew their poisonous pollutions—compelled him to find refuge here.