Transcript Bela Bartok 1881-1945

Bela Bartok
1881-1945
•Hungerian Composer born in Banat.
•Talented in music from a very young age
•Formal training began at age 4
•1899-1903: Student at the Royal Academy of Music
–Met Zoltán Kodály
•1902: Met Richard Strauss- major influence
•1904: Fascination with folk music began
–String Quartet No. 1 (1908)
•1907: Began teaching at the Academy
Bela Bartok
1881-1945
• 1908-Expedition to collect
Hungarian folk melodies
– Pentatonic, Oriental folk traditions
– Immediately began being used in their comps.
• 1911-Bluebeard’s Castle (only opera)
• Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian, Algerian
and Bulgarian folk music collected.
• WW1 outbreak- returned to composition
– The Wooden Prince
– String Quartet No. 2
Bela Bartok
1881-1945
• 1918: The Miraculous Mandarin
• 1936- travels to Turkey to study
folk music
• WW2-Emmigrated to the United States.
• Known in US as pianist, music historian and
teacher, but not composer.
• 1944: Diagnosed with Leukemia
Bartok’s Music
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First Hungarian Composer
“Bartok pizzicato”
Ethnomusicology
Concerto for Orchestra
Bluebeard’s Castle:
– Only two people on stage
– “Unstagable”
– Colored lights as part of libretto
• Miraculous Mandarin:
– One act ballet
– Banned because it caused a ‘scandal’
Charles Ives
1874-1954
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Born in Danbury Connecticut
Taught by father
Age 14-church organist
1894-Yale
1899: Charles H. Raymond & Co.
Composed and worked as an organist in
spare time.
• 1927-Stopped composing
– Revised works
Style
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Bitonality-two keys at once
Development of American patriotic songs
“11 note chord”
The Unanswered Question: 1906
– Premiered 1940
– “The contemplation of a serious matter”
– Three separate components
• String orchestra "the silences of the druids—who know,
see and hear nothing."
• Solo trumpet, placed behind audience "The Invisible
Answer"
• 4 flutes "The Perennial Question of Existence"