Biography of bela bartok

He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. According to his mother, he could distinguish between different dance rhythms that she played on the piano before he learned to speak in complete sentences. In , when he was seven, his father, the director of an agricultural school, died suddenly.

The music of Richard Strauss , whom he met in at the Budapest premiere of Also sprach Zarathustra , strongly influenced his early work. This sparked his lifelong dedication to folk music. The first piece to show clear signs of this new interest is the String Quartet No. This position freed him from touring Europe as a pianist. Their growing interest in folk music coincided with a contemporary social interest in traditional national culture.

Béla bartók died

Magyar folk music had previously been categorised as Gypsy music. The classic example is Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano, which he based on popular art songs performed by Romani bands of the time. They both frequently quoted folk song melodies verbatim and wrote pieces derived entirely from authentic songs.