Bela Bartók

Bartók's music is a highly individual blend of elements transformed from his own admiration: Liszt, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Stravinsky and folk music. The melodic fertility and rhythmical vitality of all his music have ensured its consistent success since his death.

Bartók was born in 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary. His mother gave him his first piano lessons. In 1894 he studied with the conductor and composer Lászlo Erkel until 1899 when he entered the Budapest Royal Academy of Music. 

Richard Strauss stimulated his powers of composition that he wrote his nationalistic poem "Kossuth" in 1903. By this time he was travelling abroad as solo pianist, performing the works of Liszt and others.

He began in 1905 the exploration of Hungarian peasant music, and in 1906, with Kodály, published a collection of folksongs. In 1907 Bartók became professor of piano at the Budapest Royal Academy of Music.

His music was badly received in his own country, but he continued to collect folk music.
"The Wooden Prince", his ballet was successfully produced in Budapest and led to the staging in the following year 1918 of his opera, the "Duke Bluebeard's Castle".

In 1940 he emigrated to the US. This was not a happy time for him because his health began to fail. He died of leukemia in New York in 1945.

Maria Cuconoiu
"Unirea" National College, Focsani, Romania