Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Among his notable works are the opera ''

Bluebeard's Castle ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' (, literally ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act Symbolism (movement), Symbolist opera by composer Béla Bartók to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Based on the French folk legen ...

'', the ballet ''

The Miraculous Mandarin ''The Miraculous Mandarin'' (, ; ) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918 and 1924, and based on the 1916 story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered on 27 November 1926 conducted by Eugen Szenka ...

'', ''

Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta ''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'', Sz. 106, BB 114 is one of the best-known compositions by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Commissioned by Paul Sacher to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the chamber orchestra '' Basler Kam ...

'', the Concerto for Orchestra and six string quartets. Through his collection and analytical study of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

, he was one of the founders of

comparative musicology Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

, which later became known as ethnomusicology. Per

Anthony Tommasini Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief c ...

, Bartók "has empowered generations of subsequent composers to incorporate folk music and classical traditions from whatever culture into their works and was "a formidable modernist who in the face of Schoenberg’s breathtaking formulations showed another way, forging a language that was an amalgam of tonality, unorthodox scales and atonal wanderings."

Biography

Childhood and early years (1881–1898)

Bartók was born in the

Banat Banat ( , ; ; ; ) is a geographical and Historical regions of Central Europe, historical region located in the Pannonian Basin that straddles Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lie ...

ian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

(present-day

Sânnicolau Mare Sânnicolau Mare (; ; ; Banat Swabians, Banat Swabian: ''Sanniklos''; ; Banat Bulgarian dialect, Banat Bulgarian: ''Smikluš'') is a List of cities and towns in Romania, town in Timiș County, Romania, and the westernmost in the country. Located i ...

, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Bunjevci Bunjevci ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Bunjevci, Буњевци, ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, label=, separator=" / ", Bunjevac, Буњевац, sh-Latn-Cyrl, label=, separator=" / ", Bunjevka, Буњевка) are a South Slavs, South Slavic sub-ethnic ...

origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named

Béla Béla may refer to: * Béla (crater), an elongated lunar crater * Béla (given name), a common Hungarian male given name See also * Bela (disambiguation) * Belá (disambiguation) * Bělá (disambiguation) Bělá may refer to: Places in the Cze ...

. Bartók's mother, (1857–1939), spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmárton (present-day

Martin Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * M ...

, Slovakia), she had German, Hungarian and Slovak or Polish ancestry. Béla displayed notable musical talent very early in life. According to his mother, he could distinguish between different dance

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

s that she played on the piano before he learned to speak in complete sentences. By the age of four he was able to play 40 pieces on the piano, and his mother began formally teaching him the next year. In 1888, when he was seven, his father, the director of an agricultural school, died suddenly. His mother then took Béla and his sister, Erzsébet, to live in Nagyszőlős (present-day Vynohradiv, Ukraine) and then in

Pressburg Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

(present-day

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

, Slovakia). Béla gave his first public recital aged 11 in Nagyszőlős, to positive critical reception. Among the pieces he played was his own first composition, written two years previously: a short piece called "The Course of the Danube". Shortly thereafter, László Erkel accepted him as a pupil.

Early musical career (1899–1908)

From 1899 to 1903, Bartók studied piano under István Thomán, a former student of

, and composition under János Koessler at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. There he met

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education. ...

, who made a strong impression on him and became a lifelong friend and colleague. In 1903, Bartók wrote his first major orchestral work, '' Kossuth'', a

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ( ...

that honored

Lajos Kossuth Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (; ; ; ; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, r ...

, hero of the

Hungarian Revolution of 1848 The Hungarian Revolution of 1848, also known in Hungary as Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–1849 () was one of many Revolutions of 1848, European Revolutions of 1848 and was closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in ...

. The music of

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...

, whom he met in 1902 at the

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

premiere of ''

Also sprach Zarathustra , Op. 30 (, ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' or ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'') is a tone poem by German composer Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's 1883–1885 philosophical work of the same name.Kibéd in Transylvania, sing folk songs to the children in her care. This sparked his lifelong dedication to folk music. Beginning in 1907, he came under the influence of French composer

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, whose compositions Kodály had brought back from Paris. Bartók's large-scale orchestral works were still in the style of

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

and Richard Strauss, but he wrote a number of small piano pieces which showed his growing interest in

. The first piece to show clear signs of this new interest is the String Quartet No. 1 in A minor (1908), which contains folk-like elements. He began teaching as a piano professor at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. This position freed him from touring Europe as a pianist. Among his notable students were

Fritz Reiner Frederick Martin Reiner (; December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was an American conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to promine ...

, Sir Georg Solti, György Sándor, Ernő Balogh, Gisela Selden-Goth, and Lili Kraus. After Bartók moved to the United States, he taught

Jack Beeson Jack Hamilton Beeson (July 15, 1921 – June 6, 2010) was an American composer. He was known particularly for his operas, the best known of which are '' Lizzie Borden'', ''Hello Out There!'', and ''The Sweet Bye and Bye''. Early life Born in Munc ...

and Violet Archer. In 1908, Bartok and Kodály traveled into the countryside to collect and research old Magyar folk melodies. Their growing interest in folk music coincided with a contemporary social interest in traditional national culture. Magyar folk music had previously been categorised as

Gypsy {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

music. The classic example is Franz Liszt's '' Hungarian Rhapsodies'' for piano, which he based on popular art songs performed by Romani bands of the time. In contrast, Bartók and Kodály discovered that the old Magyar folk melodies were based on

pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient ci ...

s, similar to those in Asian folk traditions, such as those of Central Asia, Anatolia and Siberia. Bartók and Kodály set about incorporating elements of such Magyar peasant music into their compositions. They both frequently quoted folk song melodies ''verbatim'' and wrote pieces derived entirely from authentic songs. An example is Bartok's two volumes entitled '' For Children'' for solo piano, containing 80 folk tunes to which he wrote accompaniment. Bartók's style in his art music compositions was a synthesis of folk music, classicism, and modernism. His melodic and harmonic sense was influenced by the folk music of Hungary, Romania, and other nations. He was especially fond of the asymmetrical dance rhythms and pungent harmonies found in Bulgarian music. Most of his early compositions offer a blend of nationalist and late Romantic elements.

Middle years and career (1909–1939)

Personal life

In 1909, at the age of 28, Bartók married Márta Ziegler (1893–1967), aged 16. Their son, , was born the next year. After nearly 15 years together, Bartók divorced Márta in June 1923. Two months after his divorce, he married Ditta Pásztory (1903–1982), a piano student, ten days after proposing to her. She was aged 19, he 42. Their son, , was born in 1924. Raised as a

, by his early adulthood Bartók had become an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. He later became attracted to

Unitarianism Unitarianism () is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian sect of Christianity. Unitarian Christians affirm the wikt:unitary, unitary God in Christianity, nature of God as the singular and unique Creator deity, creator of the universe, believe that ...

and publicly converted to the Unitarian faith in 1916. Although Bartók was not conventionally religious, according to his son Béla Bartók III, "he was a nature lover: he always mentioned the miraculous order of nature with great reverence". As an adult, Béla III later became lay president of the Hungarian Unitarian Church.

Opera

In 1911, Bartók wrote what was to be his only opera, ''

'', dedicated to Márta. In creating ''Bluebeard's Castle'', Bartók uses symbolism to show parallels between unconscious motivation and fate. The opera in showing fate has a strong interaction between the characters and gives the idea that people are not able to control what the outcome will be. He entered it for a prize by the Hungarian Fine Arts Commission, but they rejected his work as not fit for the stage. In 1917 Bartók revised the score for the 1918 première and rewrote the ending. Following the 1919 revolution, in which he actively participated, he was pressured by the Horthy regime to remove the name of librettist Béla Balázs from the opera, as Balázs was of Jewish origin, was blacklisted, and had left the country for Vienna. ''Bluebeard's Castle'' received only one revival, in 1936, before Bartók emigrated. For the remainder of his life, although devoted to Hungary, its people and its culture, he never felt much loyalty to the government or its official establishments.

Folk music and composition

After his disappointment over the Fine Arts Commission competition, Bartók wrote little for two or three years, preferring to concentrate on collecting and arranging folk music. He found the phonograph an essential tool for collecting folk music for its accuracy, objectivity, and manipulability. He collected first in the

Carpathian Basin The Pannonian Basin, with the term Carpathian Basin being sometimes preferred in Hungarian literature, is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeastern Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphologic ...

(then the

), where he notated Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, and Bulgarian folk music. The developmental breakthrough for Bartok arrived when he collaboratively collected folk music with

through the medium of a phonomotor, on which they studied classification possibilities (for individual folk songs) and recorded hundreds of cylinders. Bartok's compositional command of folk elements is expressed in such an authentic and undiluted a manner because of the scales, sounds, and rhythms that were so much a part of his native Hungary that he automatically saw music in these terms. He also collected in

Moldavia Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...

, and (in 1913)

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. The outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

forced him to stop the expeditions, but he returned to composing with a ballet called '' The Wooden Prince'' (1914–1916) and the String Quartet No. 2 in (1915–1917), both influenced by

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

. Bartók's score for ''

'', another ballet, was influenced by

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

and Richard Strauss. Though started in 1918, the story's sexual content kept it from being performed until 1926. He next wrote his two

violin sonata A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple Baroque music, baroque form wi ...

s (written in 1921 and 1922, respectively), which are among his most harmonically and structurally complex pieces. In March 1927, he visited

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and performed the ''Rhapsody for piano'' Sz. 26 with the Orquestra Pau Casals at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. During the same stay, he attended a concert by the at the

Palau de la Música Catalana Palau de la Música Catalana (, ) is a concert hall in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Designed in the Catalan ''modernisme, modernista'' style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, it was built between 1905 and 1908 for Orfeó Català, a ...

. According to the critic , "he was very interested in the sardanas, above all, the freshness, spontaneity and life of our music ..he wanted to know the mechanism of the tenoras and the tibles, and requested data on the composition of the

cobla The ''cobla'' (, plural ''cobles'') is a traditional music ensemble of Catalonia, and in Northern Catalonia in France. It is generally used to accompany the sardana, a traditional Catalan folk dance, danced in a circle. Structure The modern Cobl ...

and extension and characteristics of each instrument". In 1927–1928, Bartók wrote his

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

and Fourth String Quartets, after which his compositions demonstrated his mature style. Notable examples of this period are ''

'' (1936) and Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939). The Fifth String Quartet was composed in 1934, and the Sixth String Quartet (his last) in 1939. In 1936 he travelled to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

to collect and study

Turkish folk music Turkish folk music () is the traditional music of Turkish people living in Turkey influenced by the cultures of Anatolia and former territories in Europe and Asia. Its unique structure includes regional differences under one umbrella. It includ ...

. He worked in collaboration with Turkish composer Ahmet Adnan Saygun mostly around

Adana Adana is a large city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province, Adana province, and has a population of 1 81 ...

World War II and final years (1940–1945)

In 1940, as the European political situation worsened after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Bartók was increasingly tempted to flee Hungary. He strongly opposed the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

and Hungary's alliance with Germany and the

Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...

under the

Tripartite Pact The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano, and Saburō Kurusu (in that order) and in the ...

. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Bartók refused to give concerts in Germany and broke away from his publisher there. His anti-fascist political views caused him a great deal of trouble with the establishment in Hungary. In his will recorded on 4 October 1940, he requested that no square or street be named after him until the Budapest squares Oktogon and Kodály körönd, or in fact any square or street in Hungary, no longer bore the names of

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his overthrow in 194 ...

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, as they did at the time he wrote his will. Having first sent his manuscripts out of the country, Bartók reluctantly emigrated to the US with his wife, Ditta Pásztory, in October 1940. They settled in New York City after arriving on the night of 29–30 October by a steamer from Lisbon. After joining them in 1942, their younger son Péter Bartók enlisted in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

, where he served in the Pacific during the remainder of the war and later settled in Florida, where he became a recording and sound engineer. His elder son by his first marriage, Béla Bartók III, remained in Hungary and later worked as a railroad official until his retirement in the early 1980s. Although he became an American citizen in 1945 shortly before his death, Bartók never felt fully at home in the United States. He initially found it difficult to compose in his new surroundings. Although he was well known in America as a pianist, ethnomusicologist and teacher, he was not well known as a composer. There was little American interest in his music during his final years. He and his wife Ditta gave some concerts, but demand for them was low. Bartók, who had made some recordings in Hungary, also recorded for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

after he came to the US; many of these recordings (some with Bartók's own spoken introductions) were later issued on LP and CD. Bartók was supported by a $3000-yearly research fellowship from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

for several years (more than $50,000 in 2024 dollars). He and Ditta worked on a large collection of Serbian and Croatian folk songs in Columbia's libraries. Bartók's economic difficulties during his first years in America were mitigated by publication royalties, teaching and performance tours. While his finances were always precarious, he did not live and die in poverty as was the common myth. He had enough friends and supporters to ensure that there was sufficient money and work available for him to live on. Bartók was a proud man and did not easily accept charity. Despite being short on cash at times, he often refused money that his friends offered him out of their own pockets. Although he was not a member of the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

, the society paid for any medical care he needed during his last two years, to which Bartók reluctantly agreed. According to

Edward Jablonski Edward Jablonski (March 1, 1922 – February 10, 2004) was the author of several biographies on American cultural personalities, such as George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Alan Jay Lerner, and Irving Berlin, as well as books on aviation history. ...

's 1963 article, "At no time during Bartók's American years did his income amount to less than $4,000 a year" (about $70,000 in 2024 dollars). The first symptoms of his health problems began late in 1940, when his right shoulder began to show signs of stiffening. In 1942, symptoms increased and he started having bouts of fever. Bartók's illness was at first thought to be a recurrence of the tuberculosis he had experienced as a young man, and one of his doctors in New York was Edgar Mayer, director of Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, but medical examinations found no underlying disease. Finally, in April 1944,

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

was diagnosed, but by this time, little could be done. As his body slowly failed, Bartók found more creative energy and produced a final set of masterpieces, partly thanks to the violinist Joseph Szigeti and the conductor

(Reiner had been Bartók's friend and champion since his days as Bartók's student at the Royal Academy). Bartók's last work might well have been the String Quartet No. 6 but for

Serge Koussevitzky Serge Koussevitzky (born Sergey Aleksandrovich Kusevitsky;Koussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his sig ...

commission In-Commission or commissioning may refer to: Business and contracting * Commission (remuneration), a form of payment to an agent for services rendered ** Commission (art), the purchase or the creation of a piece of art most often on behalf of anot ...

for the Concerto for Orchestra. Koussevitsky's

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in ...

premiered the work in December 1944 to highly positive reviews. The Concerto for Orchestra quickly became Bartók's most popular work, although he did not live to see its full impact. In 1944, he was also commissioned by

Yehudi Menuhin Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin (22 April 191612 March 1999), was an American-born British violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. ...

to write a Sonata for Solo Violin. In 1945, Bartók composed his Piano Concerto No. 3, a graceful and almost neo-classical work, as a surprise 42nd birthday present for Ditta, but he died just over a month before her birthday, with the scoring not quite finished. He had also sketched his Viola Concerto, but had barely started the scoring at his death, leaving completed only the viola part and sketches of the orchestral part. HUF 1000 1983 obverse

Béla Bartók died at age 64 in a hospital in New York City from complications of

(specifically, of secondary

polycythemia Polycythemia (also known as polycythaemia) is a laboratory finding in which the hematocrit (the volume percentage of red blood cells in the blood) and/or hemoglobin concentration are increased in the blood. Polycythemia is sometimes called erythr ...

) on 26 September 1945. His funeral was attended by only ten people. Aside from his widow and their son, other attendees included György Sándor. Bartók's body was initially interred in

Ferncliff Cemetery Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum is a cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, United States, about north of Midtown Manhattan. It was founded in 1902, and is non-sectarian. Ferncliff has columbariums, a crematory, a small chapel, and a main office loca ...

Hartsdale, New York Hartsdale is a hamlet located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 5,293 at the 2010 census. It is a suburb of New York City. History Hartsdale, a CDP/hamlet/post-office in the town of Gre ...

. During the final year of communist Hungary in the late 1980s, the Hungarian government, along with his two sons, Béla III and Péter, requested that his remains be exhumed and transferred back to

for burial, where Hungary arranged a

state funeral A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honour people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements o ...

for him on 7 July 1988. He was re-interred at Budapest's Farkasréti Cemetery, next to the remains of Ditta, who died in 1982, one year after what would have been Béla Bartók's 100th birthday. The two unfinished works were later completed by his pupil Tibor Serly. György Sándor was the soloist in the first performance of the Third Piano Concerto on 8 February 1946. Ditta Pásztory-Bartók later played and recorded it. The Viola Concerto was revised and published in the 1990s by Bartók's son; this version may be closer to what Bartók intended. Concurrently, Peter Bartók, in association with Argentine musician Nelson Dellamaggiore, worked to reprint and revise past editions of the Third Piano Concerto.

Music

Bartók's music reflects two trends that dramatically changed the sound of music in the 20th century: the breakdown of the

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...

system of harmony that had served composers for the previous two hundred years; and the revival of nationalism as a source for musical inspiration, a trend that began with

Mikhail Glinka Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, links=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, mʲɪxɐˈil ɨˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognit ...

and

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...

in the last half of the 19th century. In his search for new forms of tonality, Bartók turned to Hungarian folk music, as well as to other folk music of the

and even of Algeria and Turkey; in so doing he became influential in that stream of modernism which used indigenous music and techniques. One characteristic style of music is his Night music, which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or orchestral compositions in his mature period. It is characterised by "eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies". An example is the third movement (Adagio) of his ''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta''. His music can be grouped roughly in accordance with the different periods in his life.

Early years (1890–1902)

The works of Bartók's youth were written in a classical and early romantic style touched with influences of popular and romani music. Between 1890 and 1894 (9 to 13 years of age) he wrote 31 piano pieces. Although most of these were simple dance pieces, in these early works Bartók began to tackle some more advanced forms, as in his ten-part programmatic ''A Duna folyása'' ("The Course of the Danube", 1890–1894), which he played in his first public recital in 1892. In Catholic grammar school Bartók took to studying the scores of composers "from

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the or ...

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

", his compositions then advancing in style and taking on similarities to

Schumann Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...

and

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, often set within studied ye ...

. Following his matriculation into the Budapest Academy in 1890 he composed very little, though he began to work on exercises in orchestration and familiarized himself thoroughly with the operas of Wagner. In 1902 his creative energies were revitalized by the discovery of the music of Richard Strauss, whose tone poem ''Also sprach Zarathustra'', according to Bartók, "stimulated the greatest enthusiasm in me; at last I saw the way that lay before me". Bartók also owned the score to ''A Hero's Life'', which he transcribed for the piano and committed to memory.

New influences (1903–1911)

Under the influence of Strauss, Bartók composed in 1903 ''Kossuth'', a symphonic poem in ten tableaux on the subject of the 1848 Hungarian war of independence, reflecting the composers growing interest in musical nationalism. A year later he renewed his opus numbers with the ''Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra'' serving as Opus 1. Driven by nationalistic fervor and a desire to transcend the influence of prior composers, Bartók began a lifelong devotion to folk music, which was sparked by his overhearing nanny Lidi Dósa's singing of Transylvanian folk songs at a Hungarian resort in 1904. Bartók began to collect Magyar peasant melodies, later extending to the folk music of other peoples of the Carpathian Basin, Slovaks, Romanians, Rusyns, Serbs and Croatians. He used fewer and fewer romantic elements, in favour of an idiom that embodied folk music as intrinsic and essential to its style. Later in life he commented on the incorporation of folk and art music:

The question is, what are the ways in which peasant music is taken over and becomes transmuted into modern music? We may, for instance, take over a peasant melody unchanged or only slightly varied, write an accompaniment to it and possibly some opening and concluding phrases. This kind of work would show a certain analogy with Bach's treatment of chorales. ... Another method ... is the following: the composer does not make use of a real peasant melody but invents his own imitation of such melodies. There is no true difference between this method and the one described above. ... There is yet a third way ... Neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music. In this case we may say, he has completely absorbed the idiom of peasant music which has become his musical mother tongue.

Bartók became first acquainted with Debussy's music in 1907 and regarded his music highly. In an interview in 1939 Bartók said:

Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities. In that, he was just as important as Beethoven, who revealed to us the possibilities of progressive form, or as Bach, who showed us the transcendent significance of counterpoint. Now, what I am always asking myself is this: is it possible to make a synthesis of these three great masters, a living synthesis that will be valid for our time?

Debussy's influence is present in the Fourteen Bagatelles (1908). These made

Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

exclaim: "At last something truly new!" Until 1911, Bartók composed widely differing works which ranged from adherence to romantic style, to folk song arrangements and to his modernist opera ''Bluebeard's Castle''. The negative reception of his work led him to focus on folk music research after 1911 and abandon composition with the exception of folk music arrangements.

Inspiration and experimentation (1916–1921)

His pessimistic attitude towards composing was lifted by the stormy and inspiring contact with Klára Gombossy in the summer of 1915. This interesting episode in Bartók's life remained hidden until it was researched by Denijs Dille between 1979 and 1989. Bartók started composing again, including the Suite for piano opus 14 (1916), and ''The Miraculous Mandarin'' (1919) and he completed ''The Wooden Prince'' (1917). Bartók felt the result of World War I as a personal tragedy. Many regions he loved were severed from

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...

, the

(where he was born), and Bratislava (Pozsony, where his mother had lived). Additionally, the political relations between Hungary and other successor states to the

Austro-Hungarian empire Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

prohibited his folk music research outside of Hungary. Bartók also wrote the noteworthy '' Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs'' in 1920 and the sunny '' Dance Suite'' in 1923, the year of his second marriage.

"Synthesis of East and West" (1926–1945)

In 1926, Bartók needed a significant piece for piano and orchestra with which he could tour in Europe and America. He was particularly inspired by American composer

Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher, teacher Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.C ...

's controversial use of intense tone clusters on the piano while touring western Europe. Bartók happened to be present at one of these concerts and (to avoid causing offence) later requested Cowell's permission to use his technique, which Cowell granted. In the preparation for writing his first Piano Concerto, he wrote his Sonata, '' Out of Doors'', and ''Nine Little Pieces'', all for solo piano, and all of which prominently utilize clusters. He increasingly found his own voice in his maturity. The style of his last period named "Synthesis of East and West" is hard to define let alone to put under one term. In his mature period, Bartók wrote relatively few works but most of them are large-scale compositions for large settings. Only his voice works have programmatic titles and his late works often adhere to classical forms. Among Bartók's most important works are the six string quartets (1909, 1917, 1927, 1928, 1934, and 1939), the '' Cantata Profana'' (1930), which Bartók declared was the work he felt and professed to be his most personal "credo", the ''Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'' (1936), the Concerto for Orchestra (1943) and the Third Piano Concerto (1945). He made a lasting contribution to the literature for younger students: for his son Péter's music lessons, he composed '' Mikrokosmos'', a six-volume collection of graded piano pieces.

Musical analysis

Paul Wilson lists as the most prominent characteristics of Bartók's music from late 1920s onwards the influence of the

Carpathian basin The Pannonian Basin, with the term Carpathian Basin being sometimes preferred in Hungarian literature, is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeastern Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphologic ...

and European art music, and his changing attitude toward (and use of) tonality, but without the use of the traditional

harmonic functions In mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of stochastic processes, a harmonic function is a twice continuously differentiable function f\colon U \to \mathbb R, where is an open subset of that satisfies Laplace's equation, that ...

associated with major and minor scales. Although Bartók claimed in his writings that his music was always tonal, he rarely used the chords or scales normally associated with tonality, and so the descriptive resources of tonal theory are of limited use. George and Elliott focus on his alternative methods of signaling tonal centers, via axes of inversional symmetry. Others view Bartók's axes of symmetry in terms of atonal analytic protocols.

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...

argues that inversional symmetry is often a byproduct of another atonal procedure, the formation of chords from transpositionally related dyads. Atonal pitch-class theory also furnishes resources for exploring polymodal chromaticism, projected sets,

privileged pattern In music a privileged pattern is a motive, figure, or chord which is repeated and transposed so that the transpositions form a recognizable pattern. The pattern of transposition may be either by a repeated interval, an interval cycle, or a ste ...

s, and large set types used as source sets such as the equal tempered twelve tone aggregate,

octatonic scale An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the ancohemitonic symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), ...

(and alpha chord), the diatonic and ''heptatonia secunda'' seven-note scales, and less often the whole tone scale and the primary pentatonic collection. He rarely used the simple aggregate actively to shape musical structure, though there are notable examples such as the second theme from the first movement of his Second Violin Concerto, of which he commented that he "wanted to show Schoenberg that one can use all twelve tones and still remain tonal". More thoroughly, in the first eight measures of the last movement of his Second Quartet, all notes gradually gather with the twelfth (G) sounding for the first time on the last beat of measure 8, marking the end of the first section. The aggregate is partitioned in the opening of the Third String Quartet with C–D–D–E in the accompaniment (strings) while the remaining pitch classes are used in the melody (violin 1) and more often as 7–35 (diatonic or "white-key" collection) and 5–35 (pentatonic or "black-key" collection) such as in no. 6 of the ''Eight Improvisations''. There, the primary theme is on the black keys in the left hand, while the right accompanies with triads from the white keys. In measures 50–51 in the third movement of the Fourth Quartet, the first violin and cello play black-key chords, while the second violin and viola play stepwise diatonic lines. On the other hand, from as early as the Suite for piano, Op. 14 (1914), he occasionally employed a form of

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

based on compound interval cycles, some of which are maximally distributed, multi-aggregate cycles. Ernő Lendvai analyses Bartók's works as being based on two opposing tonal systems, that of the acoustic scale and the axis system, as well as using the

golden section In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their summation, sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities and with , is in a golden ratio to if \fr ...

as a structural principle.

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Biography ...

, in his 1949 review of Bartók's string quartets, criticized Bartók for using tonality and non-tonal methods unique to each piece. Babbitt noted that "Bartók's solution was a specific one, it cannot be duplicated". Bartók's use of "two organizational principles"—tonality for large scale relationships and the piece-specific method for moment to moment thematic elements—was a problem for Babbitt, who worried that the "highly attenuated tonality" requires extreme non-harmonic methods to create a feeling of closure.

Catalogues

The cataloguing of Bartók's works is somewhat complex. Bartók assigned opus numbers to his works three times, the last of these series ending with the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, Op. 21 in 1921. He ended this practice because of the difficulty of distinguishing between original works and ethnographic arrangements, and between major and minor works. Since his death, three attempts—two full and one partial—have been made at cataloguing. The first, and still most widely used, is András Szőllősy's chronological Sz. numbers, from 1 to 121. subsequently reorganised the juvenilia (Sz. 1–25) thematically, as DD numbers 1 to 77. The most recent catalogue is that of László Somfai; this is a chronological index with works identified by BB numbers 1 to 129, incorporating corrections based on the Béla Bartók Thematic Catalogue. On 1 January 2016, Bartók's works entered the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Discography

Together with his like-minded contemporary

, Bartók embarked on an extensive programme of field research to capture the folk and peasant melodies of Magyar, Slovak and Romanian language territories. At first they transcribed the melodies by hand, but later they began to use a phonomotor, a wax cylinder recording machine invented by

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

. Compilations of Bartók's field recordings, interviews, and original piano playing have been released over the years, largely by the Hungarian record label

Hungaroton Hungaroton is the oldest record and music publisher company in Hungary. Hungaroton was founded in 1951, when its only competitors in the Hungarian music market were record labels like Melodiya, Supraphon and from other socialist countries. P ...

: * * * * * Bartók, Béla. 2003. ''Bartók Sonata for 2 Pianos & Percussion, Suite for 2 Pianos.'' Apex 0927-49569-2. CD recording. * * * A compilation of field recordings and transcriptions for two violas was also recently released by Tantara Records in 2014. On 18 March 2016 Decca Classics released ''Béla Bartók: The Complete Works'', the first ever complete compilation of all of Bartók's compositions, including new recordings of never-before-recorded early piano and vocal works. However, none of the composer's own performances are included in this 32-disc set.

Statues and other memorials

* A statue of Bartók stands in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium, near the central train station in a public square, Spanjeplein-Place d'Espagne. * A statue stands outside Malvern Court, London, south of the South Kensington tube station, and just north of Sydney Place. An

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

, unveiled in 1997, now commemorates Bartók at 7 Sydney Place, where he stayed when performing in London. * A statue of him was installed in front of the house in which Bartók spent his last eight years in Hungary, at Csalán út 29, in the hills above Budapest. It is now operated as the Béla (Bartók Béla Emlékház). Copies of this statue also stand in

Makó Makó (, , Makowe, or , ) is a town in Csongrád County, in southeastern Hungary, from the Romanian border. It lies on the Maros River. Makó is home to 21,913 people and it has an area of , of which is arable land. Makó is the fourth-larges ...

(the closest Hungarian city to his birthplace, which is now in Romania), Paris, London and Toronto. * A bust and plaque located at his last residence, in New York City at 309 W. 57th Street, inscribed: "The Great Hungarian Composer / Béla Bartók / (1881–1945) / Made His Home In This House / During the Last Year of His Life". * A bust of him is located in the front yard of Ankara State Conservatory, Ankara, Turkey, next to the bust of Ahmet Adnan Saygun. * In 1999, Bartók was inducted into the American Classical Musical Hall of Fame. * A bust of him is located in the front yard of Ankara State Conservatory, Ankara, Turkey, next to the bust of Ahmet Adnan Saygun. * A bronze statue of Bartók, sculpted by Imre Varga in 2005, stands in the front lobby of The Royal Conservatory of Music, 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. * A bronze bust of Bartók stands in the Anton Scudier Central Park in

Timișoara Timișoara (, , ; , also or ; ; ; see #Etymology, other names) is the capital city of Timiș County, Banat, and the main economic, social and cultural center in Western Romania. Located on the Bega (Tisza), Bega River, Timișoara is consider ...

, Romania. This park has an "Alley of Personalities", set up in 2009 and featuring busts of famous "Romanians". Sânnicolau Mare (Nagyszentmiklós in Hungarian), the small town where Bartók was born in 1881, is situated some 58 kilometres north-west of Timișoara, and is just inside Romania today, near the border with Hungary. * A statue of Bartók, sculpted by Imre Varga, stands near the river

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

in the public park at , 26 place de Brazzaville, in Paris, France. * Also to be noted, in the same park, a sculptural transcription of the composer's research on tonal harmony, the fountain/sculpture ''Cristaux'' designed by Jean-Yves Lechevallier in 1980. * An expressionist sculpture by Hungarian sculptor András Beck in , Paris 16th arrondissement. * A statue of him also stands in the city centre of

Târgu Mureș Târgu Mureș (, ; ; German language, German: ''Neumarkt am Mieresch'') is the seat of Mureș County in the historical region of Transylvania, Romania. It is the list of cities and towns in Romania, 16th-largest city in Romania, with 116,033 ...

, Romania. * A statue (seated) of Bartók is also situated in front of , in his hometown, Nagyszentmiklós. * Bartok has star on the Walk of Fame on Karlsplatz-Passage in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

References

Citations

Sources

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External links

*
Bartók Béla Memorial House, Budapest

The Belgian Bartók Archives, housed in the Brussels Royal Library and founded by Denijs Dille
* *

Finding aid to Béla Bartók manuscripts at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
*

* ttps://www.explorethescore.org/pgs/bartok/inside_the_score/inside_the_score_homepage.html Interactive scores of Bartók's works for piano with Sir András Schiff. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bartok, Bela 1881 births 1945 deaths 20th-century Hungarian classical composers 20th-century Hungarian musicians 20th-century Hungarian male musicians 20th-century Hungarian musicologists Anton Rubinstein Competition prize-winners Ballet composers Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery Columbia University faculty Composers for piano Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Deaths from leukemia Former Roman Catholics Franz Liszt Academy of Music alumni Academic staff of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music Columbia University people Hungarian atheists Hungarian classical pianists Hungarian emigrants to the United States Hungarian ethnomusicologists Hungarian folk-song collectors Hungarian music educators Hungarian opera composers Hungarian people of Croatian descent Hungarian people of German descent Hungarian refugees Hungarian Unitarians Hungarian male classical pianists Hungarian male opera composers Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Members of the Romanian Academy elected posthumously Modernist composers People from Sânnicolau Mare People from Saranac Lake, New York Pupils of Hans von Koessler Pupils of István Thomán String quartet composers Composers for viola