History Music / BelaBartok

His most famous works are ''Music/{{Mikrokosmos}}'', ''Music/RomanianDances'', ''Music/DanceSuite'', his three Piano Concertos, ''MusicForStringsPercussionAndCelesta'', and the Concerto for Orchestra.

* {{Opera}}: He wrote only work in this genre, ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'', which was rejected by the Hungarian Fine Arts Commission as unstageworthy when Bartok submitted it for an award. It wasn't performed until five years later, but is now considered one of Bartok's most important works. Despite its unusually small cast -- it only has two main characters and three silent roles, which is a little awkward if you have a large group of performers on retainer -- it receives regular performances.

* At the start of the music video for "Too Much Blood" from Music/TheRollingStones' album ''Music/{{Undercover}}'' (1981) a small snippet from Bartok's String Quartet No. 3 can be heard.

* {{Opera}}: He wrote only work in this genre, ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'', which was rejected by the Hungarian Fine Arts Commission as unstageworthy when Bartok submitted it for an award. It wasn't performed until 5 years later, but is now considered one of Bartok's most important works. Despite its unusually small cast -- it only has two main characters and three silent roles, which is a little awkward if you have a large group of performers on retainer -- it receives regular performances.
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: His compositions frequently quote traditional folk music from Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, which he collected on countless field recordings, accompanied by his colleague Music/ZoltanKodaly. Since this music was sufficiently ancient, he didn't have to pay royalties for it.

* UncommonTime: One frequently finds the composer using non-standard time signatures, sometimes under the heading "Bulgarian Rhythm." He also sometimes utilizes changing meter.

* InHarmonyWithNature: Bartók's music is deeply influenced by nature, even referencing this in individual pieces, such as the "Bear Dance" movements from the Sonatina and Ten Easy Pieces (both for piano). Bartók composed several slow movements that use eerie dissonances and quiet, trance-like figuration, evoking sounds of nature at night. Musicologists gave them the nickname "night music". One movement from the solo piano suite ''Music/OutOfDoors'' is typical of this style and even has a movement titled "The Night's Music."

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: His compositions frequently quote traditional folk music from Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, which he collected on countless field recordings accompanied by his colleague Music/ZoltanKodaly. Since this music was sufficiently ancient, he didn't have to pay royalties for it.

* UncommonTime: This frequently occurs under the heading "Bulgarian Rhythm":

His most famous works are ''Music/{{Mikrokosmos}}'', ''Music/RomanianDances'', ''Music/DanceSuite'', his three Piano Concertos, ''[[Music/MusicForStringsPercussionAndCelesta Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta]]'', and the Concerto for Orchestra.

* CallToAgriculture: His music is greatly influenced by traditional peasant's music. Bartók felt it wasn't pretentious, cheaply sentimental or as sterile as the music he heard elsewhere.
* CutShort: Bartók was working on his third piano concerto and his viola concerto at the time of his death from leukemia in 1945; he had finished all but the orchestration of the final 17 bars of the piano concerto, which his student Tibor Serly polished off before the work's premiere (and which are now accepted as canonical in performances of the work). The viola concerto was in a much more fragmentary state, with much of the instrumentation and texture still to be completed; although both Serly and, fifty years later, the composer's son Peter (in collaboration with Paul Neubauer and Nelson Dellamaggiore) produced performance versions of the work, they are much more speculative than the performance version of the piano concerto.

* FolkMusic: He used folk music as the basis for his on work, building up a huge collection of field recordings of authentic peasant's music from Eastern Europe, North Africa and Asia.

* InHarmonyWithNature: Bartók's music is deeply ingrained in nature, even referencing this in individual pieces, such as "Bear Dance". Bartók composed quite some mood pieces, characterised by slow movements, making use of eerie dissonances, comparable to the lonely sounds of nature at night. Musicologists gave them the nickname "night music". One piece from the solo piano suite ''Music/OutOfDoors'' is typical of this style and even has a movement titled "The Night's Music."

* {{Opera}}: He wrote only work in this genre, ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'', which was rejected by the Hungarian Fine Arts Commission as unstageworthy when Bartok submitted it for an award. It wasn't performed until 5 years later, but is now considered one of Bartok's most important works, and, despite its unusually small cast causing some difficulty - it only has two main characters and three silent roles, which is a little awkward if you have a large group of performers on retainer - it receives regular performance.
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: His compositions frequently quote from traditional music, which he collected on countless field recordings for which he crossed large parts of rural Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, accompanied by his colleague Music/ZoltanKodaly. Since this music was so ancient he didn't have to pay royalties for it.

Béla Viktor János Bartók (25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, widely regarded as one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. He is widely renowned for his interest in traditional peasant's music, which he collected together with his composer friend Music/ZoltanKodaly, while traveling in Eastern Europe and North Africa. Bartók was enarmored by the authenticity and originality of this music. While other Eastern European composers such as Music/FryderykChopin, Music/FranzLiszt and Music/AntoninDvorak had also used influences of traditional FolkMusic in their work Bartók was the first to keep the primitive rawness of peasant music intact. As a result his music sometimes sounds clangorous, but there are also moments that are so moving that it makes you cry.

* Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer covered "Allegro Barbaro" as "The Barbarian", which got them in legal trouble with Bartók's widow.
* The guitar part during "Every Breath You Take" from ''Music/{{Synchronicity}}'' by Music/ThePolice was inspired by Bartók's "Violin Duos".