Where was Béla Bartók born?
Béla Bartók was born on the 25th of March 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, a Banatian town in the Kingdom of Hungary, which is present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania.
Questions about Béla Bartók
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What was Béla Bartók's role in ethnomusicology?
Bartók was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology. He collected folk music across the Carpathian Basin, Moldavia, Wallachia, Algeria, and Turkey using a phonograph and wax-cylinder recording machine, and folk music scholar Charles Seeger called him one of the greatest field collectors of the first half of the 20th century.
Why did Béla Bartók leave Hungary and emigrate to the United States?
Bartók strongly opposed the Nazis and Hungary's alliance with Germany under the Tripartite Pact. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he refused to give concerts in Germany and broke with his German publisher. He emigrated with his wife Ditta in October 1940, arriving in New York City on the night of the 29th-the 30th of October by steamer from Lisbon.
What are Béla Bartók's most important compositions?
Bartók's notable works include the opera Bluebeard's Castle, the ballets The Miraculous Mandarin and The Wooden Prince, Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta (1936), the Concerto for Orchestra (1943), the Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945), six string quartets, and the Cantata Profana (1930), which Bartók called his most personal credo.
How did Béla Bartók discover folk music?
Bartók's lifelong dedication to folk music was sparked in the summer of 1904 when he overheard a young nanny named Lidi Dósa, from Kibéd in Transylvania, singing folk songs to children at a Hungarian holiday resort. He and Zoltán Kodály then undertook systematic field research, discovering that authentic Magyar peasant melodies were built on pentatonic scales rather than the Romani-influenced songs Liszt had used.
When and how did Béla Bartók die?
Bartók died on the 26th of September 1945 in a New York City hospital from complications of leukemia, specifically secondary polycythemia. He was 64 years old, and his funeral was attended by only ten people. His remains were later transferred to Budapest, where Hungary arranged a state funeral on the 7th of July 1988.