The music publisher Boosey and Hawkes represented Editio Musica Budapest in the United States as well as in several European countries, so their New York office was my base on the few occasions I flew overseas to promote our composers. My opposite number was David Huntley, but I also met the corporate vice president, Sylvia Goldstein. On realizing that she had been with the firm since 1940, I asked her if she had met Bartók. Her reply in the affirmative led logically to the question of whether she would be willing to give me an interview. That was in May 1984.

Listening to the recording today, I am appalled by the poor sound quality. I have had to rewind the cassette time and time again; even so, I could not make out every word. My colleague at Universal Edition, Jonathan Irons, came to the rescue: but for him, only a fraction of the interview would have made it to this book.

The year in which Sylvia Goldstein was employed as secretary to Hans Heinsheimer, 1940, was also the year of Bartók's emigration to the United States.

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Sylvia Goldstein (SG): At that time, we also had an artists' bureau, run by Andrew Schulhof (before his emigration, he had been connected with the Berlin Philharmonic). He signed up Bartók and his wife as artists, whereas Heinsheimer took him under contract as a composer.