Born:
March 25, 1881
Birthplace:
Nagyszentmiklós, Austria-Hungary
Died:
Sept. 26, 1945 in New York, N.Y., U.S.A. due to leukemia.
Also Known As:
Bela Bartok was an ethnomusicologist, music teacher, pianist and well-known Hungarian composer. He was appointed as piano professor at the Budapest Academy in 1907.
Type of Compositions:
He wrote stage and orchestral works, piano solos, string quartets, cantata and folk songs. He was an avid collector of folk songs.
Influence:
His mother taught him how to play the piano as a child and he also studied under different teachers. He started composing at age 9 and had his debut as a pianist when he was 11. Bartok later on studied at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest.
Notable Works:
Among his known works are: "The Miraculous Mandarin," "Microkosmos," "Contrasts," "Kossuth," "Duke Bluebeard's Castle," "The Wooden Prince," "Cantata Profana," "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta," "Concerto for Orchestra" and "Sonata for Solo Violin."
Interesting Facts:
He became a research assistant at Columbia University. In 1906, interest on the music of central Europe was sparked by the publication of a book called Hungarian Folk Songs by Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly.
His first wife was Marta Ziegler, his student, with whom he had a son. After divorcing Marta, Bartok married another student named Ditta Pasztory with whom he had another son. His "Third Piano Concerto" was written for Ditta.
Related Video:
Listen to Bela Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" courtesy of YouTube.