Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

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(b Sînnicolau Mare, 25 March 1881; d New York, 26 Sept 1945). Hungarian composer. He began lessons with his mother, who brought up the family after his father's death in 1888. In 1894 they settled in Bratislava, where he attended the Gymnasium (Dohnányi was an elder schoolfellow), studied the piano with László Erkel and Anton Hyrtl, and composed sonatas and quartets. In 1898 he was accepted by the Vienna Conservatory, but following Dohnányi he went to the Budapest Academy (1899-1903), where he studied the piano with Liszt's pupil Istvan Thoman and composition with Janos Koessler. There he deepened his acquaintance with Wagner, though it was the music of Strauss, which he met at the Budapest première of Also sprach Zarathustra in1902, that had most influence. He wrote a symphonic poem, Kossuth (1903), using Strauss's methods with Hungarian elements in Liszt's manner.

In 1904 Kossuth was performed in Budapest and Manchester; at the same time Bartók began to make a career as a pianist, writing a Piano Quintet and two Lisztian virtuoso showpieces (Rhapsody op.1, Scherzo op.2). Also in 1904 he made his first Hungarian folksong transcription. In 1905 he collected more songs and began his collaboration with Kodály: their first arrangements were published in 1906. The next year he was appointed Thoman's successor at the Budapest Academy, which enabled him to settle in Hungary and continue his folksong collecting, notably in Transylvania. Meanwhile his music was beginning to be influenced by this activity and by the music of Debussy that Kodály had brought back from Paris: both opened the way to new, modal kinds of harmony and irregular metre. The 1908 Violin Concerto is still within the symphonic tradition, but the many small piano pieces of this period show a new, authentically Hungarian Bartók emerging, with the 4ths of Magyar folksong, the rhythms of peasant dance and the scales he had discovered among Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak peoples. The arrival of this new voice is documented in his String Quartet no.1 (1908), introduced at a Budapest concert of his music in 1910.

There followed orchestral pieces and a one-act opera, Bluebeard's Castle, dedicated to his young wife. Influenced by Musorgsky and Debussy but most directly by Hungarian peasant music (and Strauss, still, in its orchestral pictures), the work, a grim fable of human isolation, failed to win the competition in which it was entered. For two years (1912-14) Bartók practically gave up composition and devoted himself to the collection, arrangement and study of folk music, until World War I put an end to his expeditions. He returned to creative activity with the String Quartet no.2 (1917) and the fairytale ballet The Wooden Prince, whose production in Budapest in 1917 restored him to public favour. The next year Bluebeard's Castle was staged and he began a second ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin, which was not performed until 1926 (there were problems over the subject, the thwarting and consummation of sexual passion). Rich and graphic in invention, the score is practically an opera without words.

While composing The Mandarin Bartók came under the influence of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, and produced some of his most complex music in the two violin sonatas of 1921-2. At the same time he was gaining international esteem: his works were published by Universal Edition and he was invited to play them all over Europe. He was now well established, too, at home. He wrote the confident Dance Suite (1923) for a concert marking the 50th anniversary of Budapest, though there was then another lull in his composing activity until the sudden rush of works in 1926 designed for himself to play, including the Piano Concerto no.1, the Piano Sonata and the suite Out of Doors. These exploit the piano as a percussion instrument, using its resonances as well as its xylophonic hardness. The search for new sonorities and driving rhythms was continued in the next two string quartets (1927-8), of which no.4, like the concerto, is in a five-section palindromic pattern (ABCBA).

Similar formal schemes, with intensively worked counterpoint, were used in the Piano Concerto no.2 (1931) and String Quartet no.5 (1934), though now Bartók's harmony was becoming more diatonic. The move from inward chromaticism to a glowing major (though modally tinged) tonality is basic to the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936) and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937), both written for performance in Switzerland at a time when the political situation in Hungary was growing unsympathetic.

In 1940 Bartók and his second wife (he had divorced and remarried in 1923) sadly left war-torn Europe to live in New York, which he found alien. They gave concerts and for a while he had a research grant to work on a collection of Yugoslav folksong, but their finances were precarious, as increasingly was his health. It seemed that his last European work, the String Quartet no.6 (1939), might be his pessimistic swansong, but then came the exuberant Concerto for Orchestra (1943) and the involuted Sonata for solo violin (1944). Piano Concerto no.3, written to provide his widow with an income, was almost finished when he died, a Viola Concerto left in sketch.

works:
Opera

• Bluebeard's Castle (1918)

Ballets

• The Wooden Prince (1917)
• The Miraculous Mandarin (1926)

Orchestral music

• Kossuth (1903)
• 2 suites (1905, 1907)
• 2 Pictures (1910)
• 2 Portraits (1911)
• 4 Pieces (1921)
• Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936)
• Divertimento, strs (1939)
• Conc. for (Orch) (1943)
• 2 vn concs. (1908, 1938)
• Dance Suite (1923)
• 3 pf concs. (1926, 1931, 1945)
• Conc. for 2 Pf (1940)

Choral music

• Cantata profana (1930)
• other pieces and folksong arrs.

Chamber music

• 6 str qts (1908, 1917, 1927, 1928, 1934, 1939)
• 2 vn sonatas (1921-2)
• 2 rhapsodies, vn, pf (1928)
• 44 duos, 2 vn (1931)
• Sonata for 2 pf, perc (1937)
• Contrasts, vn, cl, pf (1938)
• Sonata, solo vn (1944)

Piano music

• Allegro barbaro (1911)
• Suite (1916)
• Sonata (1926)
• Out of Doors (1926)
• Mikrokosmos, 6 bks (1926-39)
• many other pieces

Songs

• 5 op.15 and 5 op.16 (1916)
• folksong arrs.

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Béla Bartók (1881-1945) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. His profound studies of folk songs not only revolutionized scholarship in this field but also furnished him with rich sources for his own creative work.

In the 19th century the wealth of Magyar folk music was virtually unknown to Hungarian composers. When Béla Bartók first transcribed a Hungarian folk tune in the field in 1904, he realized that this world of music was unknown to him. Subjecting it to systematic study, he soon gained a new basis for his musical esthetics. His mature work was founded on the assimilation of the essence of Hungarian folk music into his personal musical language. Appreciation of this accomplishment often lagged during his lifetime; in the quarter century after his death, however, Bartók's status as a major musical figure was firmly established.

Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sânnicolaul-Mare, Romania), on March 25, 1881. His father was director of a government agricultural school; his mother, a teacher and pianist. She gave Béla his first piano lesson on his fifth birthday; his great gifts as pianist soon became evident, and at the age of 9 he began to compose. After he entered the Academy of Music at Budapest in 1899, his composing temporarily stopped. However, in 1902 the first Budapest performance of Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra inspired him to resume creative work. Bartók's first major composition was the symphonic poem Kossuth (1903). Three years later his first work based upon Hungarian peasant music was published: the Twenty Hungarian Folksongs, produced in collaboration with Zoltán Kodály (each composer set 10 songs).

In 1907 Bartók became professor of piano at the Academy of Music in Budapest. His tenure lasted nearly 30 years, being interrupted occasionally for folk-song research and concert tours. His first wife, Márta Ziegler, and second wife, Ditta Pásztory, were both his piano pupils. He never taught composition, fearing that to do so might endanger his own creative work.

Important Bartók works composed between 1907 and 1922 include the opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), the First and Second String Quartets (1909, 1918), the ballet The Wooden Prince (1914-1916), the two Violin and Piano Sonatas (1921-1922), and the pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin (1918-1919).

After World War I Bartók intensified his career as a concert pianist. He gave the first performances of his first two Piano Concertos (1927, 1930-1931). In 1927 he made his first United States tour, performing a number of his own works to mixed critical reception. Significant compositions include the Two Rhapsodies for violin and piano (1928), the Fourth and Fifth String Quartets (1928, 1934), the Cantata profana (1930), and the earliest books of Mikrokosmos, which is a series of 153 progressive pieces for piano on which Bartók worked from 1926 to 1939.

Bartók's Views on Folk Music

Bartók's artistic intent at this point in his career is excellently summarized in his essay "The Influence of Peasant Music on Modern Music" (1931). He describes the various ways in which folk music can be transmuted into contemporary art music. In the simplest form the folk melody may be taken over unchanged or only slightly varied, with the addition of an accompaniment and perhaps some opening and closing phrases. The additional material may be merely ornamental in nature, or it may be of primary importance. The next logical step is for the composer to invent his own imitation of a folk melody, then to treat it exactly like the borrowed tune. To Bartók it made no difference whether the composer invented his own themes or borrowed material. He stated emphatically that the composer "has a right to use musical material from all sources. What he has judged suitable for his purpose has become through the very use his mental property…. The question of origins can only be interesting from the point of view of musical documentation."

The highest form of folk-influenced music, Bartók believed, is that in which the folk atmosphere has been completely assimilated. He described such music as follows: "Neither peasant music nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his [the composer's] music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music. In this case we may say he has completely absorbed the idiom of peasant music which has become his musical mother tongue." No better description could be given of the part played by folk music in Bartók's mature work.

Later Works

The political situation of Hungary became more and more unsettled in the mid-1930s. During this period Bartók produced important works: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936); Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937); Contrasts for violin, clarinet, and piano (1938); the Violin Concerto (1937-1938); and the Sixth String Quartet (1939). When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, he realized he would have to leave Hungary soon. After the death of his mother in 1939 his last tie was broken.

The following year Bartók and his wife settled in New York City. He was given a temporary appointment at Columbia University, transcribing the records of Serbo-Croatian folk songs in the Parry Collection, which lasted through 1942. Bartók's persistent ill health and resultant inability to perform publicly or to take another position left his financial situation precarious. Fortunately he received important commissions, and assistance from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. The Concerto for Orchestra (1943) was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky; the solo Violin Sonata (1944) by Yehudi Menuhin; and the Viola Concerto (1945) by William Primrose. The last-named work remained unfinished; it was completed by Tibor Serly, one of Bartók's pupils. Bartók worked on his Third Piano Concerto, which he composed for his wife, until a few days before his death. The last 17 measures were still incomplete when he died of leukemia on Sept. 26, 1945.

Bartók's works have steadily risen in popularity since his death. The Concerto For Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion have been widely performed and recorded; the six String Quartets belong to the classic repertory of 20th-century chamber music; and Mikrokosmos is considered standard piano-teaching material.

Further Reading

The standard biography of Bartók in English is Halsey Stevens, The Life and Music of Béla Bartók (1953; rev. ed. 1964). An excellent collection of essays from Tempo magazine, including selections from Bartók's writings, is Béla Bartók: A Memorial Review (1950). Agatha Fassett, The Naked Face of Genius: Béla Bartók's American Years (1958), gives a moving account of Bartók's last years. Bence Szabolcsi, Béla Bartók, His Life in Pictures (1956; trans. 1964), is a good pictorial biography.

Bartók, Béla (b Nagyszentmiklós, 25 Mar. 1881, d New York, 26 Sept. 1945). Hungarian composer. He wrote only two ballet scores: The Wooden Prince (1917), which was rejected by Diaghilev as ‘false modernism’, and The Miraculous Mandarin (1926), which proved to be an enduring favourite with choreographers throughout the 20th century. Many of his concert works have been used as ballet scores.

Bartók, Béla (1881–1945), Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist. A central figure in 20th‐century music, Bartók devoted a significant part of his musical life to the collection, classification, and study of folk music, most extensively that of Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. This music had a profound influence on his own compositions, from the many didactic piano pieces based on folk melodies, to the major works, in which the forms, rhythms, and melodic patterns of specific folk‐music traditions are variously, and pervasively, present.

Two of his three stage works are based on fairy tales. The one‐act opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle (composed 1911; first performed 1918), written to a libretto by Béla Balász (influenced by Maurice Maeterlinck's Ariane et Barbe‐bleue), uses the castle, with its seven locked rooms, as a physical manifestation of Bluebeard's inner self. The gradual opening of each door by the heroine, here named Judith, culminates in the discovery of the ghostly figures of three former wives. Having urged her husband to reveal all, it only remains for Judith to take her place at their side. In contrast, the ballet The Wooden Prince (1917), with scenario again by Balász, follows a more traditional fairy‐tale pattern. A prince, hindered by the Fairy of the Forest from wooing a princess, resorts to carving a puppet of himself. Although the princess initially falls for the puppet (brought to life by the Fairy), she finally acknowledges the real prince.

Bibliography

• Kroó, György, ‘Duke Bluebeard's Castle’, Studia Musicologica, 1 (1961).
• John, Nicholas (ed.), The Stage Works of Béla Bartók (1991).

— Stephen Benson

Quotes:

"Competitions are for horse, not artist."

• Period: Modern (1910-1949)
• Country: Hungary
• Born: March 25, 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary
• Died: September 26, 1945 in New York, NY
• Genres: Ballet, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Keyboard Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Vocal Music

Biography

Through his far-reaching endeavors as composer, performer, educator, and ethnomusicolgist, Béla Bartók emerged as one of the most forceful and influential musical personalities of the twentieth century. Born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Romania), on March 25, 1881, Bartók began his musical training with piano studies at the age of five, foreshadowing his lifelong affinity for the instrument. Following his graduation from the Royal Academy of Music in 1901 and the composition of his first mature works -- most notably, the symphonic poem Kossuth (1903) -- Bartók embarked on one of the classic field studies in the history of ethnomusicology. With fellow countryman and composer Zoltán Kodály, he traveled throughout Hungary and neighboring countries, collecting thousands of authentic folk songs. Bartók's immersion in this music lasted for decades, and the intricacies he discovered therein, from plangent modality to fiercely aggressive rhythms, exerted a potent influence on his own musical language.

In addition to his compositional activities and folk music research, Bartók's career unfolded amid a bustling schedule of teaching and performing. The great success he enjoyed as a concert artist in the 1920s was offset somewhat by difficulties that arose from the tenuous political atmosphere in Hungary, a situation exacerbated by the composer's frank manner. As the specter of fascism in Europe in the 1930s grew ever more sinister, he refused to play in Germany and banned radio broadcasts of his music there and in Italy. A concert in Budapest on October 8, 1940, was the composer's farewell to the country which had provided him so much inspiration and yet caused him so much grief. Days later, Bartók and his wife set sail for America.

In his final years Bartók was beleaguered by poor health. Though his prospects seemed sunnier in the final year of his life, his last great hope -- to return to Hungary -- was dashed in the aftermath of World War II. He died of leukemia in New York on September 26, 1945. The composer's legacy included a number of ambitious but unrealized projects, including a Seventh String Quartet; two major works, the Viola Concerto and the Piano Concerto No. 3, were completed from Bartók's in-progress scores and sketches by his pupil, Tibor Serly.

From its roots in the music he performed as a pianist -- Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms -- Bartók's own style evolved through several stages into one of the most distinctive and influential musical idioms of the first half of the twentieth century. The complete assimilation of elements from varied sources -- the Classical masters, contemporaries like Debussy, folk songs -- is one of the signal traits of Bartók's music. The polychromatic orchestral textures of Richard Strauss had an immediate and long-lasting effect upon Bartók's own instrumental sense, evidenced in masterpieces such as Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936) and the Concerto for Orchestra (1945). Bartók demonstrated an especial concern with form in his exploitation and refinement of devices like palindromes, arches, and proportions based on the "golden section." Perhaps above all other elements, though, it is the ingenious application of rhythm that gives Bartók's music its keen edge. Inspired by the folk music he loved, Bartók infused his works with asymmetrical, sometimes driving, often savage, rhythms, which supply violent propulsion to works such as Allegro barbaro (1911) and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937). If a single example from Bartók's catalogue can be regarded as representative, it is certainly the piano collection Mikrokosmos (1926-1939), originally intended as a progressive keyboard primer for the composer's son, Peter. These six volumes, comprising 153 pieces, remain valuable not only as a pedagogical tool but as an exhaustive glossary of the techniques -- melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, formal -- that provided a vessel for Bartók's extraordinary musical personality. ~ Michael Rodman, All Music Guide

Discography

Bartók: Contrasts; Mikrokosmos [Excerpts] Buy this CD	Bartók: Recordings from Private Collections Buy this CD	Bartók Plays Bartók Buy this CD	Bartók at the Piano-1 Buy this CD	Bartók plays Bartók Buy this CD
Renascence Buy this CD	Kontraste-Mikrokosmos Buy this CD	Bartok Plays Bartok Buy this CD