With these three studies Bartók quite deliberately aimed to leave his mark on New Music in 1918. The first study is a kind of super-charged, motorically vehement Allegro barbaro, while the second, with its effervescent waterfalls of sound, seems redolent of an elegy inspired by Debussy.

In the third, by contrast, Schönberg’s influence is recognisable. The latter’s “Private Musical Performances” in Vienna were also among the few occasions in the 1920s where Bartók’s supremely demanding cycle –...