Béla Bartók
/1881-1945/
„One of the Greatest composers and pianists of the 20th centuey.”
Béla Bartók was born in a small provincial town in Hungary called Nagyszentmiklos. Originally, the Bartok family came from northern Hungary.Bela Bartok senior, the composer's father, was the successful headmaster of an agricultural school at Nagyszentmiklos, and known for his high energy and devotion to the fine arts.The family atmosphere provided their children, Bela and Elza, with intellectual stimulus and even after Bela senior's untimely death in 1888, his wife, Paula Voit, saw to it that her offspring had an excellent education.
Left a widow, Bartok's mother now had to accept teaching positions around Hungary, finally settling in the town of Pozsony (now Bratislava in Slovakia).Fortunately, the town had high culture and a well developed musical tradition.From the age of three, Bartok had exhibited an amazing ear for music, pounding out rhythms on his little drum to perfect time, as his mother played the piano. At four he could play at least 40 folk tunes by memory on the piano, and his mother realized her son had an enormous musical talent.
At five he begged his mother to teach him piano, and at nine he wrote his first composition, a waltz entitled "The Course of the Danube."His first successful public appearance occurred at the age of eleven when he performed his own "The Course of the Danube." At this point, news of his unusual talent reached the ears of some eminent professors, and he was accepted as a student of Laszlo Erkel in Pozsony.
At this time in Hungary there were two kinds of music: "high art" music, played in Budapest, which was mainly German, including Wagner and Brahms; and gypsy music, which was wildly popular in the provinces. Young Bartok was influenced greatly by the German music taught him by his teachers, and was equally influenced later by the music of Franz Liszt.
After graduating from grammar school in 1899, Bartok set his sights on the illustrious Academy of Music in Vienna, where he was accepted. However, because his close friend and fellow pianist, Ernst von Dohnanyi, decided to enter the Academy of Music in Budapest, which had been founded by Franz Liszt, Bartok followed his example.
Early in 1899 he began piano studies with the renowned Istvan Thoman (a pupil of Liszt), and composition with Hans Koessler (a devotee of Brahms). Unfortunately, his studies were constantly interrupted during his first year by bronchial illnesses, including a bout with pneumonia that laid him up for six months. During this time, even the doctors gave up on him. It was only his mother who brought him back to health with careful nursing and a cure in the mountains.
In 1901 he was ready to make an appearance at the Academy in a sensational performance of Liszt's Sonata in B minor.Hailed mainly during this period as a promising young concert pianist, Bartok also wrote many works, including chamber music, piano pieces and orchestral compositions. Among these were a Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 2, and the sketch of a symphony in four movements. The heavyinfluences of Schumann and Brahms are evident in these works. Bartok's famous sardonic, grotesque and playful scherzo style was yet to emerge.
