Preview

Bela Bartok

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1636 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Bela Bartok
Bela Bartok

Bela Bartok was born on March 25th, 1881 in Baratian, a small town in Hungary. His father, Bela Bartok Sr., belonged to a lower noble family of Hungary though his mother Paula came from a Roman Catholic Serbian family in Serbia. At an early age, Bela started showing talent for music and often distinguished rhythms when his mother played the piano. This was before he could even properly speak. At the age of 4, he played 40 pieces on the piano and his mother, recognizing his talent, began teaching him formally. [1] Bela was a sick child till the age of 5. He suffered from eczema, which was caused by a smallpox inoculation, and because of this he spent his early years in isolation away from other children. At the age of 7, he lost his father, and his mother moved to Pozgony along with Bela and his sister, Erzsebet. At Pozgony, Bela who was then 11, gave his first recital in public, performing his own composition, which he composed two years earlier. Immediately after this, Laszio Erkel accepted him as his pupil. Bela graduated from grammar school in 1899. Up to 1903, he studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of music in Budapest. At this academy Bela met Zoltan Kodaly, who totally influenced him, and remained his life long friend and colleague. His first major orchestral work, a symphonic poem, ‘Kossuth’, honoring Lajos Kossuth, the hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, came out in 1903.[2] He was influenced in his early work by the music of Richard Strauss whom he met in 1902. Then in 1904, at a holiday resort, he overheard Lidi Doza sing folk songs and this marked the beginning of his life-long dedication to folk music. He was also influenced by Claude Debussy, the French Composer. Bela’s style of orchestral work resembled those of Johannes Brahmas and Richard Strauss. He wrote a lot of small piano pieces showing great interest in folk music. The first of such piece was the ‘String Quartet No.1’ in



Bibliography: Laszio Somfai, Bela Bartek-Composition Concepts and Autograph (University of California Press Los Angeles, California Year: 1996), page 2 Peter Hughes, Bela Bartok (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society) [1] Laszio Somfai, Bela Bartek-Composition Concepts and Autograph (University of California Press Los Angeles, California Year: 1996), page 2 [2] Peter Hughes, Bela Bartok (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society)

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Classical Music Era

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One of the most famous composers was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756, Mozart was a born prodigy. He mastered the keyboard at 5 and was a self taught violin play wrote hundreds of symphonies and many…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    He is a unique composer because he was the first to develop the Hungarian folk song and stayed true to the Hungarian nationalism while incorporating his own innovative…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Scott Joplin

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Baker 's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, ed. Nicolas Slonimsky, 7th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1984)1135-1136…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Clara Schumann (Wieck) was born in Leipzig, Germany in September 1819 and died in Frankfurt in May of 1896. She was born to Friedrich Wieck and Marianne (Tromlitz). Her father was a talented pianist who taught but began his career in theology at his mother’s insistence. Clara’s mother, Marianne, was a pianist and soprano who studied with Friedrich. Friedrich and Marianne were wed in 1816 and he began training her to perform and help to forward his own career as a teacher. After eight years and five children, she left him and got a divorce. He then turned his musical focus to his eldest child, Clara and began to train her in her mother’s stead.…

    • 1690 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Squarcialupi Codex

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd Edition. Vol. 18. London: Macmillian Publishers Limited, 2001.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1812 Overture

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Tchaikovsky was a respected musician of his time and was well-suited to accomplish this task. His sensitivity and excitable temperament, was so freely expressed in his music. By the age of 23, he had devoted himself entirely to music up until now. Living in poverty, he worked so hard that he suffered greatly from, depression and insomnia, with frequent nightmares. His great gift for melody, brilliant orchestral colour and strong emotional expression, delighted audiences.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Burnham, Scott G, and Michael P Steinberg. Beethoven and His World. Princeton [N.J.]: Princeton University Press, 2000.…

    • 2223 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Beethoven began to take an interest in music from an early age. Johann, his father taught him day and night playing music. Unfortunately, Johann had a problem with alcohol and become alcoholic. Johann, who noticed the talent of his son and realized how he was good. Viewing it as Beethoven immediately will become the next Mozart. At the age of seven, Beethoven already made his first public concert at a place called, Colonge. Due to the alcohol problem of his father, Beethoven began to learn music from a musician named Guttlob Neefe. While teaching him, Guttlob Neefe also noticed how talented Beethoven was and predict for his popularity.…

    • 1362 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    APA Style Of Documentation

    • 1958 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Sadie, S., & Tyrrell, J. (Eds.). (2002). The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians (2nd ed., Vols. 1-29). New York: Grove.…

    • 1958 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ludwig Van Beethoven

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cited: Kerman, Joseph. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 Vols. London: MacMillan Pub. Ltd., 1980. 2: 354-60.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The road to Prokofiev’s growth to being one of the most unique composers of his time started in Sontsovka, Ukraine in the year 1891. His mother was a pianist and his first piano teacher. Prokofiev began writing piano pieces at age five and by age nine had written his first opera. He studied at the St. Petersburg conservatory starting at ten years of age from 1904 to 1914. Prokofiev performed as a virtuoso starting in 1910 and began making a living in music. At his graduation recital he played his own first concerto. In 1915 during World War I he composed Scythian Suite and his first classical Symphony in 1917 (David Nice).…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    Cited: Behrens, Laurence and Rosen, Leonard J. Research and Composition in the Disciplines. New York, Longman, 2011. Print.…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frederic Chopin

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was born in a tiny village of Zelazowa about thirty miles away from Warsaw where he was raised as the son of a Polish mother and French father. While growing up in Warsaw much of his childhood compositions are known today as some of the most significant achievements for a composer in the Romantic era. At a very young age his original style of playing and composing astonished the polish aristocracy. After a fire broke out in his village many years later the home of Chopin was one of the few left standing. The house was set up for restoration as a museum and small concert hall. Chopin is the only composer labeled as "great" to write almost exclusively for the piano. Coming from a poor family he found his love for music at an early age. As a gifted child he began writing and composing his own pieces and has his first published by the age of seven. After realizing his fragile stature couldn’t last with composers like Liszt he was left to teach for most of his wages while playing in smaller concerts. Before he even set foot in high school Chopin had already written four polonaises, a variation set, and a rondo though most of his work was concentrated on virtuoso piano music.…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Stravinsky's Rite of Spring

    • 3195 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Igor Stravinsky was born in Jume of 1886 in Oranienbaum, Russia. Stravinsky grew up n a musical household, his father being one of the leading basses of his day. Being surrounded by music at a young age, he started piano lessons at age nine, yet he was never considered much of a prodigy like expected. He was scorned from learning theory and composition at a young age, as well as for spending most of his time improvising rather than practicing. Even in a musical household, Stravinsky was never given free reign with his desires to compose.…

    • 3195 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    I decided to write about Claude Debussy because I believe he was an extraordinary composer and his works really influenced the 20th century. Claude Debussy was born on August 22, 1862, in France. Debussy, showed a significant interested in piano since he was a kid. This passion about piano, opened the door for a new path regarding music, that changed his life in a very good and beneficial way. Although, he did not come from a rich family, Debussy became a very honorable person. His journey in the music’s life started at the age of 7, when he began to take piano lesson. As a result, he entered at the Paris conservatory at the age of 11. During his years at the conservatory, he showed his talent and outstanding confidence while playing the piano.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays