Transcript Bela Bartok Born: March 25, 1881, Sînnicolau Mare, Hungary Died

Bela Bartok
Born: March 25, 1881, Sînnicolau Mare, Hungary
Died: September 26, 1945, New York
In his own words....
"Many people think it is a comparatively easy task to write
a composition on found folk tunes...This way of thinking is
completely erroneous. To handle folk tunes is one of the
most difficult tasks; equally difficult, if not more so, than to
write a major original composition. If we keep in mind that
borrowing a tune means being bound by its individual
peculiarity, we shall understand one part of the difficulty.
Another is created by the special character of folk tune.
We must penetrate it, feel it, and bring out its sharp
contours by the appropriate setting...It must be a work of
inspiration just as much as any other composition."
Hungarian composer and pianist. Bartók is best
known for his use of Hungarian folk music to create a
distinct individual style.
The folk music of Hungary was central to the
music of Béla Bartók. He was not the first
composer to make use of this music (we can
see it as far back as Haydn), but he was one
of the first to take it at face value, and to
exploit its idiosyncrasies. More important, he
integrated it fully into his own style, so much
so that one of his biographers talks about
Bartók's music as "imaginary folk music"—
music that is wholly his own, yet of a piece
with the folk music that was its inspiration.
Continued
Bartók was born into a musical family and
received good pianistic training from his
mother. He was something of a prodigy, and
began composing at the age of ten. In 1898
he was accepted at the prestigious Vienna
Conservatory, but chose instead to stay in
Hungary at the Budapest Academy. His early
work was influenced greatly by Strauss and
Liszt, but his first major work, the symphonic
Kossuth (1903), also stands out for its telling
of a nationalist story.
Continued
In 1904 Bartók began collecting folk music by
recording musicians on wax cylinders. This had a
profound impact on his compositional style, for in
these pieces he found elements that he began to
incorporate into his own writing. The melodies of
these folk tunes, removed from the traditional
major/minor tonality of Western music, provided
new melodic and harmonic resources, and the
powerful and often asymmetrical rhythms (often
freely mixing groupings of twos and threes)
became a hallmark of Bartók's rhythmic style.
Continued
In 1907 Bartók was appointed professor of
piano at the Budapest Academy and he
continued his compositional activity, creating
works of greater complexity. By the early
1920s his music was verging on an atonal
style. He gained international success with a
less challenging work, The Wooden Prince
(1917), and by the late 1920s his music
started to take on more of a neoclassical
approach.
Continued
The crises leading up to World War II forced
Bartók to flee Hungary and settle in the
United States. The move caused both
financial and personal difficulties, and failing
health heightened these. Nonetheless, in his
final few years he created a group of
important pieces, including the Concerto for
Orchestra.
Continued
Bartók's music is marked by its precision of execution.
His forms (especially in his later works) are intensely
symmetrical. Often they create an arch or palindrome
(ABACABA, for example). He also exploited different
sonorities and instrumental effects, including an
antiphonal orchestra in Music for Strings, Percussion
and Celesta (1936). His tonal language continued to be
colored by his work with folk music, and in some cases
he made use of quarter tones. Although Bartók wrote in
all mediums, he may well be best remembered for his
six string quartets. These works, a summation of his
compositional style and development are often viewed
as the logical successors to those of Beethoven.