Today is the birthday of Béla Bartók (1881-1945), considered, alongside Franz Liszt, to be the greatest composer Hungary ever produced. In fact, he was one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

Bartók had a gift for absorbing the music of the villages and the countryside of Central and Eastern Europe and filtering it through his own distinctive sensibility. His was a musical nationalism very much of his time and far removed from the 19th century model as exemplified by composers like Mikhail Glinka and Bedřich Smetana.

He was one of the first to take a scientific approach to the collection and classification of folk music. His absorption of indigenous techniques led to the breakdown of diatonic harmony, which had dominated western art music for centuries, and opened up a world of possibility for those who followed. He also loved eerie dissonances, which he often employed as a backdrop to nature sounds and desolate melodies.

Bartók wrote music of varying degrees of difficulty, from a listener perspective, ranging from the opulence of his early Richard Strauss-influenced orchestral works, to the primitive savagery of his percussive piano writing, to the edgy dissonance of his six landmark string quartets, to the sweeping synthesis of Western art music and European folk music in mature masterworks like his “Concerto for Orchestra.”

Happy birthday, Béla Bartók.

Bartók speaks (in Bela Lugosi-accented English):

Bartók performs one of his most popular (and accessible) works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW4AHmTzyMo

PHOTO: The composer among Turkish tribesmen in Anatolia