Bela Bartok and His Folk Music Legacy
Bela Bartok was a renowned composer who incorporated folk music into his work. His legacy continues to influence musicians today.
Early life and musical training
Bela Bartok was born in the small town of Nagyszentmiklos in the Kingdom of Hungary, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on March 25, 1881. His father, Béla Sr., was an official in the Ministry of Agriculture, and his mother, Paula, a gifted amateur pianist who gave young Béla his first piano lessons. Bartók exhibited prodigious musical talent from an early age; by the age of four he could play the piano, and by age seven he had composed his first piece of music, a short piano piece entitled “Love Song.” When he was eight years old, his family moved to Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia), where he began piano lessons with Slovak composer and folk music collector JánKrtitel Bogányi.
Bartok’s family and childhood
Béla Bartók’s father, Béla Sr., was a gifted amateur musician and diligent civil servant who encouraged his son’s musical development. Béla Bartók Sr.’s enthusiasm for music inspired in his young son a lifelong passion, as did his insistence on strict discipline and high standards. Béla Jr. began piano lessons at age four with a local teacher, From age seven he took viola lessons (which he later called “the best thing that ever happened to me”). At age eleven he gave his first public performance, playing the violin in a charity concert in Budapest.
Bartók’s mother, Paula Sacha de Maroshegyi (d. 1932), came from an old and wealthy family of Roman Catholic Székelys in z //Great// Hungary (now Transylvania). Paula’s father, Antal Sacha (1834-1898), was one of the most successful attorneys at the Budapest bar. Paula’s mother, Ilona Knorr de Pappenheim (1844-1907), was the daughter of Baron Moritz Knorr, a wealthy banker and industrialist who founded the first Hungarian sugar refinery. From an early age Bartók was exposed to folk music through his mother’s family—most notably through his great-uncle Kálmán Knorr (1828-1914), a cellist who frequently performed popular songs and dances on the viola d’amore in salon concerts.
Bartok’s musical training
Bartók’s mother was an excellent pianist who introduced her son to the instrument. He later became a student of the respected piano pedagogue István Thomán. As a teenager, Bartók gave serious thought to becoming a professional concert pianist, but he did not pursue this career path and instead decided to study composition and musicology at the Budapest Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Hans Koessler and Edison Denisov.
Bartok’s folk music research
Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist who is best known for his research on Hungarian and other Central European folk music. Bartok was also an accomplished pianist and violinist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century.
Bartok’s collecting trips
Bartok first became interested in folk music while he was studying composition in Budapest. He began making field recordings of Hungarian folk songs in 1905, and later took trips to Romania (1907-1908, 1909-1910), Slovakia (1913-1914), and Bulgaria (1915-1918) to collect folk music from those regions as well. He also collected songs from the Turks living in Hungary and from the Roma (Gypsy) people. All told, Bartok collected over 6000 folk songs from these various regions and groups.
The influence of folk music on Bartok’s compositional style
Bartok was one of the first composers to incorporate folk music into his own compositions. He believed that folk music was the purest form of musical expression, and he sought to find new ways to incorporate it into his work. Bartok’s research into folk music had a profound impact on his compositional style, and he is credited with helping to create a new genre of composition known as “ethnomusicology.” Bartok’s contributions to this field are still studied and celebrated today.
Bartok’s folk music legacy
Bela Bartok was a prolific composer who drew much of his inspiration from his Hungarian heritage and the folk music of Hungary and Romania. Bartok collected and transcribed hundreds of folk songs, and his knowledge of folk music had a profound influence on his own compositions. Bartok’s folk-inspired works include some of his best-known and most popular pieces, such as the Concerto for Orchestra and the music for the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin.
The influence of Bartok’s folk music research on later composers
Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer who is remembered for his groundbreaking research into the folk music of Hungary and other nations. Bartok collected hundreds of folk songs from across Europe, using them as the basis for his own compositions. Many of these songs were arranged for piano and orchestra, and they remain some of his most popular works.
Bartok’s folk music research had a profound effect on subsequent generations of composers. His work was an important step in the development of ethnomusicology, and it helped to bring traditional folk music to a wider audience. Numerous composers have been influenced by Bartok’s example, including Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, and Leonard Bernstein.
The influence of Bartok’s folk music research on ethnomusicology
Bartok’s work on folk music had a profound influence on the field of ethnomusicology. Bartok was one of the first scholars to view folk music as a living tradition, and his work helped to change the way that folk music was studied. Bartok’s research methods were also groundbreaking, and he is credited with being one of the first scholars to use audio recordings to document folk music. Bartok’s work on Hungarian folk music was particularly influential, and his collection of Hungarian folk songs is still one of the most important sources of information on Hungarian folk music.
