Béla Bartók

A Hungarian composer who lived from 1881-1945. He is often thought of as Hungary's national composer since he used so many traditional songs and tunes in his compositions. His period of greatest composition was from 1907 until 1940. In that year he both learned he had leukemia and had to leave Hungry for the US due to the rise of Nazism.

He was a composer of symphonic music and for other "classical" groupings. His best-loved pieces of music are "Concerto for Orchestra" and his six string quartets. Many of his pieces incorporate Transylvanian melodies.

Another interesting note is that is hometown, Nagyszentmiklos, is now inside Romania due to the redrawing of boarders after World War I and II.

Bela Bartok is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, even by those who do not like twentieth century music.

His piano music is often heard on the stage, both professional, and student.

METHODS - STUDIES - COLLECTIONS

• Bartok Album - Volumes 1, 2
• Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs (1914-17)
• First Term at the Piano - 18 Pieces (1913)
• For Children - Books 1 and 2 (1908-09)
• Four Dirges (1909-10)
• Four Piano Pieces (1903)
• Fourteen Bagatelles, Op. 6 (1908)
• Improvisations, Op. 20 (1920)
• Mikrokosmos - 153 progressive pieces in 6 volumes (1926-39)
• Nine Little Pieces - Volumes 1 and 3 (1926)
• Petite Suite (from ‘44 Duos for 2 Violins’) (1936)
• Piano Method
• Roumanian Christmas Carols (1915)
• Roumanian Folk Dances (1915)
• Seven Sketches, Op. 9
• Ten Easy Pieces (1908)
• Thirty-two Pieces (from ‘For Children’)
• Young People at the Piano - Volumes 1 and 2

SOLOS

• Allegro Barbaro (1911)
• Ballad (from ‘Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs’)
• Bear Dance (from ‘Ten Easy Pieces’)
• Dance Suite
• Evening in the Country
• Fantasia No. 2
• From the Diary of a Fly
• Ostinado
• Out of Doors Suite (1926)
• Rhapsody, Op. 1 (First Version) (1904)
• Roumanian Folk Dance, No. 6
• Sonata (1926)
• Sonatina (1915)
• Suite, Op. 14 (1916)
• Three Burlesques, Op. 8c
• Three Hungarian Folk Tunes (1914-17)
• Three Rondos on Folk Tunes (1916-27)
• Three Studies, Op.18 (1918)
• Two Elegies, Op. 8b
• Two Roumanian Dances, Op. 8a

DUETS

• Miraculous Mandarin

TWO PIANOS FOUR HANDS

• Concerto No. 1
• Concerto No. 2
• Concerto No. 3
• Rhapsody, Op. 1
• Seven Pieces from ‘Mikrokosmos’
• Sonata from Two Pianos and Percussion
• Suite, Op. 4b