Béla Bartók took village songs and made them part of modern classical music. He travelled with a phonograph through Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak villages. He recorded singers whose music had never been written down. Those rhythms and scales filled his compositions with fresh, fierce energy. He fiercely opposed fascism and left Hungary in 1940. Life in America was hard, and he died poor in New York. Today his works are central to the repertoire.
Key Milestones
1906: Starts collecting folk songs with Zoltán Kodály
1911: Composes Bluebeard's Castle
1940: Emigrates to the United States
1943: Writes the Concerto for Orchestra
Béla Viktor János Bartók (Hungarian:; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers.
