The heyday of the European art song, which began in the middle of the 18th century, ended at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály took a different path: they renewed the art song by returning it to its folk origins. The most fascinating thing about the work of these two musicians was not just their painstaking ethnomusicological field research. Whilst they preserved Hungarian folkmusic, recording (as best they could at the time) and notating this music, they also allowed it to inspire their own compositions. At this time, when many musicians appropriated folk music for political reasons, Bartók and Kodály created a genuine folk art that did not pander or simplify, but spoke of feelings that directly touched its listeners.