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Bela Bartok, One of the best-known Hungarian composers is also one of the most significant musician of the twentieth century. He shared a strong passion for ethnomusicology, which is the scientific study of music, especially traditional music, as an aspect of culture. Bartok synthesized the Hungarian pattern of music and other folk music that he studied to make his own distinctive style. Bartok was born on 1881 at Nagyszentmiklos, which became Sinnicolau Mare, Romania. When Bartok's father died, Paula, Bela's mother, took their family to Nagyazollos, which later named, Vinogradov, Ukraine. When Bartok received a smallpox inoculation, it gave him a rash that lasted until he was five years old.
Because of this, Bartok spent majority of his childhood in isolation from the other kids. In spare time, he listened to his mother play the piano, which led him to his passion. Soon Bartok begin to show amazing musical ability then composed dances at age nine. Bartok studied piano under many teachers. The composer Erno Dohnanyl, who was 4 years older than him, heavily influenced him.
When Erno went to Academy of Music in Budapest, Bartok also decided to do so on the year of 1899. When Bartok graduated, he became a concert pianist. Then in 1907, he turned to a piano instructor at the Budapest Academy. Even though he was not very fond of teaching, he did this for 25 year. In 1904, before Bartok turned to teaching piano, he met a Hungarian woman from Transylvania. She sang many folk music beautifully.
This ignited Bartok's passion for folk music. Two years later, Bartok met Kodaly, who became his best friend. Kodaly also worked with music and helped Bartok to collect recording of Hungarian folk music using an Edison cylinder. But Bartok, who was unlike Kodaly, became interested in folk music of other civilizations. He had a dream of trying to order the scattered folk tunes around the world. This ended his desire for any other kind of career.
Bartok often got criticized at home for been unpatriotic to people of his nation when he shows such a keen interest in hostile nations hostile to Hungary. Despite this, Bartok still made trips to Transylvania to study the Szekely people. These people have been in isolation from other Hungarians, therefore, have preserved some ancient traditions. While with these people, Bartok became acquainted with the Unitarian Church. Bartok was brought up as a Catholic, but he became an atheist. He often commented on the Christian religion as false and blasphemous.
He thought that life was not about immortality or the afterlife, but to give others pleasures. In 1909, Bartok married Marta Ziegler and had their son, Bela Jr. When his son was born, he converted to Unitarianism. He was briefly the chair of a music committee of the church, but not successfully, for he had strict conservative ideas that forbidden the use of all instruments but the organ. Bartok kept himself away from others, as a consequence, he often felt lonely, and is able to put this feeling into his work. His first popular work, the opera Bluebeards Castle, Also The Miraculous Mandarin.
The Miraculous Mandarin caused many controversies, for it tells a story of prostitution, robbery, and murder. Further performance had to be banned. In 1923, Bartok divorced. He immediately married a piano student, Data Pasztory. They had a son, Peter. Because of him, Bartok made a six-volume collection of graded piano pieces, Mikrokosmos, to teach his son Couple years later, during inter-war period, Bartok was temporarily suspended from his Academy posts due to political reason.
He often refused to perform to Nazis and avoided playing in Budapest. Most of Bartok's well-known pieces were written in the 1930 s. Such as, music for strings, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. When the war situation in Europe worsened. He moved to New York. Some people believe he lived in poverty, but this was proven to be false when the American Society for Composers (ASCAP) paid his medical fees when he had leukemia.
To continue to make money in New York, he commissioned an orchestral piece, Concerto for Orchestra. This proved to be Bartok's most popular piece. The new pieces were accepted and been enjoyed. One time, a review said that the music of Bartok ennobles all of music. And the contemporary world will soon be proud to say, We live in the time of Bartok. On September 26, 1945, Bartok died in a New York hospital.
He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York, then his son, bartok jr. , moved his fathers remains to Unitarian Church in Budapest.
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