Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a Hungariancomposer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers (Gillies 2001). Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Béla Bartók was born in the small Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary, AustriaHungary (since 1920 Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on March 25, 1881. Bartók's family reflected some of the ethno-cultural diversities of the country. His father, Béla Sr., considered himself thoroughly Hungarian, because on his father's side the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsod county (Móser 2006a, 44; Bartók 1981, 13), though his mother, Paula (born Paula Voit), had German as a mother tongue, but was ethnically of "mixed Hungarian" ancestry (Bayley 2001, 16). Among her closest forefathers there were families with such names as Polereczky (MagyarizedPolish or Slovak) and Fegyveres (Magyar). Béla displayed notable musical talent very early in life: according to his mother, he could distinguish between different dance rhythms that she played on the piano before he learned to speak in complete sentences (Gillies 1990, 6). By the age of four he was able to play 40 pieces on the piano amd his mother began formally teaching him the next year. Béla was a small and sickly child and suffered from severe eczema until the age of 5 (Gillies 1990, 5). In 1888, when he was seven, his father (the director of an agricultural school) died suddenly. Béla's mother then took him and his sister, Erzsébet, to live in Nagyszőlős (today Vinogradiv, Ukraine) and then to Pozsony (German: Pressburg, todayBratislava, Slovakia). In Pozsony, Béla gave his first public recital at age 11 to a warm critical reception. Among the pieces he played was his own first composition, written two years previously: a short piece called "The Course of the Danube" (de Toth 1999). Shortly thereafter László Erkel accepted him as a pupil.
Compositions Further information: List of compositions by Béla Bartók and List of solo piano compositions by Béla Bartók Bartók's music reflects two trends that dramatically changed the sound of music in the 20th century: the breakdown of the diatonic system of harmony that had served composers for the previous two hundred years (Griffiths 1978, 7); and the revival of nationalism as a source for musical inspiration, a trend that began with Mikhail Glinka and Antonín Dvořákin the last half of the 19th century (Einstein 1947, 332). In his search for new forms of tonality, Bartók turned to Hungarian folk music,
as well as to other folk music of theCarpathian Basin and even of Algeria and Turkey; in so doing he became influential in that stream of modernism which exploited indigenous music and techniques (Botstein [n.d.], §6). One characteristic style of music is his Night music, which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or orchestral compositions in his mature period. It is characterised by "eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies" (Schneider 2006, 84). An example is the third movement Adagio of his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. His music can be grouped roughly in accordance with the different periods in his life.
Youth: Late-Romanticism (1890–1902) The works of his youth are of a late-Romantic style. Between 1890 and 1894 (nine to 13 years of age) he wrote 31 pieces with corresponding opus numbers. He started numbering his works anew with "opus 1" in 1894 with his first large scale work, a piano sonata. Up to 1902, Bartók wrote in total 74 works which can be considered in Romantic style. Most of these early compositions are either scored for piano solo or include a piano. Additionally, there is some chamber music for strings.
New influences (1903–11) Under the influence of Richard Strauss (among other works Also sprach Zarathustra) (Stevens 1993, 15–17), Bartók composed in 1903 Kossuth, a symphonic poem in ten tableaux. In 1904 followed his Rhapsody for piano and orchestra which he numbered opus 1 again, marking it himself as the start of a new era in his music. An even more important occurrence of this year was his overhearing the eighteen-year-old nanny Lidi Dósa from Transylvania sing folk songs, sparking Bartók's lifelong dedication to folk music (Stevens 1993, 22). When criticised for not composing his own melodies[citation needed]
Bartók pointed out that Molière and Shakespeare mostly based their plays on well-known
stories too. Regarding the incorporation of folk music into art music he said: The question is, what are the ways in which peasant music is taken over and becomes transmuted into modern music? We may, for instance, take over a peasant melody unchanged or only slightly varied, write an accompaniment to it and possibly some opening and concluding phrases. This kind of work would show a certain analogy with Bach's treatment of chorales. ... Another method ... is the following: the composer does not make use of a real peasant melody but invents his own imitation of such melodies. There is no true difference between this method and the one described above. ... There is yet a third way ... Neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music. In this case we may say, he has completely absorbed the idiom of peasant music which has become his musical mother tongue. (Bartók 1931/1976, 341–44) Bartók became first acquainted with Debussy's music in 1907 and regarded his music highly. In an interview in 1939 Bartók said
Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities. In that, he was just as important as Beethoven, who revealed to us the possibilities of progressive form, or as Bach, who showed us the transcendent significance of counterpoint. Now, what I am always asking myself is this: is it possible to make a synthesis of these three great masters, a living synthesis that will be valid for our time? (Moreux 1953, 92) Debussy's influence is present in the Fourteen Bagatelles (1908). These made Ferruccio Busoni exclaim 'At last something truly new!' (Bartók, 1948, 2:83). Until 1911, Bartók composed widely differing works which ranged from adherence to romantic-style, to folk song arrangements and to his modernist opera Bluebeard's Castle. The negative reception of his work led him to focus on folk music research after 1911 and abandon composition with the exception of folk music arrangements (Gillies 1993, 404; Stevens 1964, 47–49).
New inspiration and experimentation (1916–21) His pessimistic attitude towards composing was lifted by the stormy and inspiring contact with Klára Gombossy in the summer of 1915 (Gillies 1993, 405). This interesting episode in Bartók's life remained hidden until it was researched by Denijs Dille between 1979 and 1989 (Dille 1990, 257–77). Bartók started composing again, including the Suite for piano opus 14 (1916), and The Miraculous
Mandarin (1918) and he completed The Wooden Prince (1917). Bartók felt the result of World War I as a personal tragedy (Stevens 1993, 3). Many regions he loved were severed from Hungary: Transylvania, the Banat where he was born, andPozsony where his mother lived. Additionally, the political relations between Hungary and the other successor states to the Austro-Hungarian empire prohibited his folk music research outside of Hungary (Somfai, 1996, 18). Bartók also wrote the noteworthy Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs in 1920, and the sunny Dance Suite in 1923, the year of his second marriage.
"Synthesis of East and West" (1926–45) In 1926, Bartók needed a significant piece for piano and orchestra with which he could tour in Europe and America. In the preparation for writing his First Piano Concerto, he wrote his Sonata, Out of Doors, and Nine Little Pieces, all for solo piano (Gillies 1993, 173). He increasingly found his own voice in his maturity. The style of his last period—named "Synthesis of East and West" (Gillies 1993, 189)—is hard to define let alone to put under one term. In his mature period, Bartók wrote relatively few works but most of them are large-scale compositions for large settings. Only his voice works have programmatic titles and his late works often adhere to classical forms. Among his masterworks are all the six string quartets (1908, 1917, 1927, 1928, 1934, and 1939), the Cantata Profana (1930, Bartók declared that this was the work he felt and professed to be his most personal "credo", Szabolcsi 1974, 186), the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936), the Concerto for Orchestra (1943) and the Third Piano Concerto (1945).
Bartók also made a lasting contribution to the literature for younger students: for his son Péter's music lessons, he composed Mikrokosmos, a six-volume collection of graded piano pieces.
Composition Highlights Title
Year
Avg. Duration
Genre
Mikrokosmos, progressive pieces (153) for piano in 6 volumes, Sz. 107, BB 105
1926
02:25:55
Keyboard
Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127
1943
38:10
Concerto
Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114
1936
29:45
Orchestral
Duos (44) for 2 violins, Volumes 1-4, Sz. 98, BB 104
1931
48:14
Chamber Music
For Children (Gyermekeknek), teaching pieces (85) without octaves in 4 volumes for piano, Sz. 42, BB 53
1908
01:02:51
Keyboard
Piano Concerto No. 3 in E major, Sz. 119, BB 127 (completed by Tibor Serly)
1945
24:08
Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Sz. 95, BB 101
1930
28:04
Concerto
Contrasts, pieces (3) for clarinet, violin & piano, Sz. 111, BB 116
1938
16:34
Chamber Music
String Quartet No. 4 in C major, Sz. 91, BB 95
1928
23:03
Chamber Music
String Quartet No. 3 in C sharp major, Sz. 85, BB 93
1927
15:36
Chamber Music
String Quartet No. 6 in D major, Sz. 114, BB 119
1939
28:49
Chamber Music
String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major, Sz. 102, BB 110
1934
30:45
Chamber Music
Piano Sonata, Sz. 80, BB 88
1926
12:55
Keyboard
Title
Year
Avg. Duration
Genre
Sonata for 2 pianos & 2 percussion, Sz. 110, BB 15
1937
25:44
Chamber Music
Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Sz. 112, BB 117
1937
37:54
Concerto
Sonata for violin solo, Sz. 117, BB 124 (edited by Yehudi Menhuin)
1944
26:20
Chamber Music
Romanian Folk Dances (6) (Román népi táncok), for piano, Sz. 56, BB 68
1915
5:35
Keyboard
Hungarian Peasant Songs (15) for piano, Sz. 71, BB 79
1914
12:31
Keyboard
String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Sz. 67, BB 75 (Op. 17)
1915
27:02
Chamber Music
Romanian Folk Dances (7) (Román népi táncok), for orchestra, Sz. 68, BB 76
1917
6:22
Orchestral
