Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a composer, pianist and collector of East European folk music. Bartók was one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, the study of folk music and the music of non-Western cultures.

Middle years and career

In 1909, Bartók married Márta Ziegler. Their son, Béla Jr., was born in 1910.

Related Topics:
1909 - Márta Ziegler - 1910

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In 1911, Bartók wrote what was to be his only opera, Bluebeard's Castle, dedicated to his wife, Márta. 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 Bartók was pressured by the government to remove the name of the librettist, Béla Balázs, from the program on account of his political views. Bartók refused, and eventually withdrew the work. For the rest of his life, Bartók did not feel greatly attached to the government or institutions of Hungary, although his love affair with its folk music continued.

Related Topics:
1911 - Opera - Bluebeard's Castle - Béla Balázs

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After his disappointment over the Fine Arts Commission prize, Bartók wrote very little for two or three years, preferring to concentrate on folk music collecting and arranging (in Central Europe, the Balkans, Algeria, and Turkey). 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.

Related Topics:
World War I - Ballet - 1914 - 16 - String Quartet No. 2 - 1915 - 17

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Bartók subsequently worked on another ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin, influenced by Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, as well as Richard Strauss, following 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. Bartók wrote his sixth and last string quartet in 1939.

Related Topics:
Igor Stravinsky - Arnold Schoenberg - Violin sonata - Third - Fourth - String quartet - 1927 - 28 - String Quartet No. 5 - 1934 - Sixth - 1939

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The Miraculous Mandarin was started in 1918, but not performed until 1926 because of its sexual content: a sordid modern story of prostitution, robbery, and murder.

Related Topics:
1918 - 1926

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Bartók divorced Márta in 1923, and married a piano student, Ditta Pásztory. His second son, Péter, was born in 1924. For Péter's music lessons Bartók began composing a six-volume collection of graded piano pieces, Mikrokosmos, which is popular with piano students today. It was to be the last piece he wrote in Europe.

Related Topics:
1923 - Ditta Pásztory - 1924 - Mikrokosmos

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