Bela Bartok Bela Bartok not only is the greatest composer Hungary has produced, but his music - a unique synthesis of the Western classical tradition with mid-European folk music - is one of the outstanding musical achievements of the twentieth century. Bartok was born in Nagyszentmiklos, a small town now in Romania. His father, a teacher and amateur musician, died when Bartok was young, and his mother, Paula, had to support her family by teaching the piano. Paula Bartok was fully aware of her son's musical gifts - his earliest compositions date from his ninth year - and she finally managed to find a permanent teaching position in Poszony (now Bratislava), where she found excellent piano and harmony teachers for the young composer. In 1899 Bartok had to decide where to continue his studies, and although the Vienna Conservatoire was the obvious choice, Bartok followed the advice of his schoolfellow, Erno Dohnanyi, and went to the Budapest Academy. There he was considered a virtuoso pianist of outstanding potential. As a composer, Like Dohnanyi he initially took Brahms as a model. But in 1902 and 1903 he was profoundly affected by two preoccupations: the music of Richard Strauss and the rising tide of Hungarian nationalism. Both influences found expression in 1903 in the symphonic poem Kossuth, based on the life of the leader of Hungary's 1848 uprising. Bartok found a further and more enduring outlet for his nationalist sentiments in Hungarian folk songs, which he started collecting in 1904. This led to a lifelong collaboration with Zoltin Kodaly, a pioneer in the field. From 1906, Bart6k made annual trips, using an Edison phonograph as recording equipment, to collect songs not only in Hungary but also in Romania, Slovakia and Transylvania. | |
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