It was early in the first decade of this century that Béla Bartók reached an impasse in his attempt to create for himself a means of musical expression. This was a time when Hungarian public opinion, reflecting a new national movement, demanded Hungarianism in every field. Stylistic features of music such as Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies seemed to point the way. Bartók, following in the fashion of the times, composed and performed in public his Second Fantasy for Piano in which the Lisztian influence is apparent.