In 1907, Bartók became a piano professor at the Budapest Academy of Music, leading a stable life. The following year, 1908, he composed numerous works, including the Violin Concerto No. 1, the orchestral work Two Portraits, the piano pieces Ten Easy Pieces, the String Quartet No. 1, and parts of the piano pieces Two Elegies, For Children, and Seven Sketches. 14 Bagatelles is also one of the experimental works composed in this year. In these pieces, Bartók explored various musical idioms, laying the foundation for his later compositions. The premiere took place in Berlin in 1908, and Busoni highly praised it.

• No. 1: The right hand has four sharps, and the left hand has four flats. It is bitonal, combining C-sharp Dorian and C Phrygian modes, yet a single tonal center is discernible in the sound.
• No. 2: The melody gradually expands its range, framed by chords of A-flat (tonic) and B-flat.
• No. 3: A five-note ostinato is repeated in the right hand, while the melody is sung slowly in the left hand.
• No. 4: A melody based on a Hungarian folk song, harmonized.
• No. 5: A melody based on a Slovak folk song (Dorian mode) is accompanied by repeated chords.
• No. 6: A clear ternary form. Accompanied by chords of the fifth and chords of the third.
• No. 7: The tempo changes frequently. "Strictly observe the rit. and acc. marked before the tempo indications."
• No. 8: According to Bartók's letters, this is one of his "most experimental pieces." Various dissonances are played while the notes in the left and right hands are offset.
• No. 9: Played entirely in unison, without any chords. An experimental piece. There seems to have been trial and error in the notation of the melody.
• No. 10: At 102 measures, this is the largest and most profound piece in the collection. It explores dissonances liberated from traditional function.
• No. 11: Similar to No. 7, the tempo changes frequently.
• No. 12: Following increasingly rapid repetitions of the same note, a short chromatic and modal melody is sung.
• No. 13 "She is dead...": This piece is related to the breakup of Bartók's relationship with Stefi Geyer, his beloved. The motif appearing where "She is dead" is written in Hungarian – D-flat, E-flat, E-natural, D-flat (originally a semitone higher) – was treated by Bartók as Stefi Geyer's motif.
• No. 14 "My sweetheart dances...": Similar to No. 13, this piece is related to the breakup with Stefi Geyer. A similar motif appears. The orchestration of this piece became the second movement, "The Ugly One," of Two Portraits.