Musicians

Born in Hungary in 1881, Bela Bartok

Born in Hungary in 1881, Bela Bartok was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, as well as a pianist and ethnomusicologist. He systematically collected and analyzed rural folk music, fusing it with avant-garde compositional techniques to create a wholly original musical language. His opera Bluebeard's Castle, ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, six string quartets, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, and Concerto for Orchestra are landmarks of twentieth-century music. He died in exile in New York in 1945, aged sixty-four.

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