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BŽla Bart—k




BŽla Bart—k (March 25, 1881 - September 26, 1945) was a
composer, pianist and collector of East European folk music.
Bart—k was one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology.

Bart—k was born in Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary (now S”nnicolau Mare, Romania).
He was taught music by his mother at an early age and he made his first
public appearance as a pianist at the age of ten. He later studied piano
under Istvan Thoman and composition under Hans Koessler at the Royal Academy
of Music in Budapest. There he met Zoltan Kodaly and together they collected
folk music from the region. This was to have a major impact on his style.
Previously, Bart—k's idea of Hungarian folk music was derived from the gypsy
melodies to be found in the works of Franz Liszt, and in 1903 Bart—k had
written a large orchestral work, Kossuth which incorporated such melodies.
Upon discovering peasant folk song, which Bart—k regarded as true Hungarian
folk music, he began to incorporate folk songs into his own compositions and
write original folk-like tunes, as well as frequently using folksy rhythmic figures.

This new style emerged over the next few years. Bart—k was building a career
for himself as a pianist, when in 1907 he landed a job as piano professor at
the Royal Academy. This allowed him to stay in Hungary rather than having to
tour Europe as a pianist, and also allowed him to collect more folk songs.
His large scale orchestral works were still in the manner of Johannes Brahms
or Richard Strauss, but he wrote a number of small piano pieces which show
his growing interest in folk music. Probably the first piece to show clear
signs of this new interest is the String Quartet No. 1 (1908), which has
several folksy elements in it.

In 1911, Bart—k wrote what was to be his only opera, Bluebeard's Castle. He
entered it for a prize awarded by the Hungarian Fine Arts Commission, but
they said it was unplayable, and rejected it out of hand. The opera remained
unperformed until 1918, when Bart—k was pressurised by the government to
remove the name of the librettist, BŽla Bal‡zs, from the program on account
of his political views. Bart—k refused, and eventually withdrew the work.
For the rest of his life, Bart—k did not feel greatly attached to the
government or institutions of Hungary, although his love affair with its
folk music continued.

After his disappointment over the Fine Arts Commission prize, Bart—k wrote
very little for two or three years, preferring to concentrate on folk music
collecting and arranging. However, the outbreak of World War I forced him to
stop these expeditions, and he returned to composing, writing the ballet The
Wooden Prince in 1914-16 and the String Quartet No. 2 in 1915-17. It was The
Wooden Prince which gave him some degree of international fame.

Bart—k subsequently worked on another ballet The Miraculous Mandarin and
followed this up with his two violin sonatas which are harmonically and
structurally some of the most complex pieces he wrote. He wrote his third
and fourth string quartets, regarded as some of the finest string quartets
ever written, in 1927-28, after which his harmonic language began to become
simpler. The String Quartet No. 5 (1934) is somewhat more traditional from
this point of view. Bartok wrote his sixth and last string quartet in 1939.

It was to be the last piece he wrote in Europe. In 1940, after the outbreak
of World War II, Bart—k reluctantly moved to the USA. He did not feel
comfortable there, and found it very difficult to write. His last work may
well have been the String Quartet No. 6, were it not for Serge Koussevitsky
commissioning him to write the the Concerto for Orchestra. This seemed to
reawaken his interest in composing, and he went on to write his Piano
Concerto No. 3, an airy and almost neo-classical work, and begin work on his
Viola Concerto.

BŽla Bart—k died in New York in the United States from leukemia. He left the
viola concerto unfinished at his death, which was later completed by his
pupil, Tibor Serly.

Important works:

   * six string quartets
   * three violin sonatas
   * three piano concertos
   * two violin concertos
   * one viola concerto
   * Allegro barbaro for piano
   * Mikrokosmos for piano
   * Bluebeard's castle, opera
   * The Miraculous Mandarin, ballet
   * Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
   * Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
   * Concerto for Orchestra

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