After his 15 Hungarian peasant songs (HN 1404), these Improvisations on Hungarian peasant songs are the second of Bartok's works to feature the words "Hungarian peasant songs" in their title. The manner in
Bartok's Romanian Christmas Carols are based on folk melodies that originated in a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, and which he felt gave “the impression of a fiery, war-like type