Béla Bartók
25.03.1881—26.09.1945

Future Performances

Der wunderbare Mandarin
27.05.2012, Dresden (D)
Herzog Blaubarts Burg
29.05.2012, Bremen (D)
Music for String Instruments, Percussion and Celesta
29.05.2012, Seoul (ROK)
Herzog Blaubarts Burg
31.05.2012, Firenze (I)
The Miraculous Mandarin
31.05.2012, Firenze (I)

News

  • BBC Proms
    BBC Proms 2011
    BBC Proms 2011
    The BBC Proms started last week and once again include a wealth of UE works in the many concerts. [...]

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Béla Bartók

The Composer

1881 – 25th March: Béla Bartók is born near the Hungarian city of Nagyszentmiklós (today: Sânnicolau Mare/Rumania) as the son of the headmaster of an agricultural school and a schoolmistress

1889 – after his father’s early death his mother brings him up and gives him piano lessons

1893 – music and composition lessons in Preßburg

1899–1903 – after graduating from the Gymnasium he studies composition and piano at the Budapest Academy of Music

1904 – world premiere of his symphonic poem Kossuth in Manchester

1905 – composes Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, the first of Bartók’s works which will be published. His early works are characterized by Hungarian [...]

About the Music

It is sheer coincidence that Béla Bartók has become the Hungarian composer we all know. After the early death of his father, who had been director of a small school at Nagyszentmiklós (now in Romania), his mother had to look after her two children (Béla had a sister, Elza) all by herself. The family lived in various towns in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – such as Pressburg (Pozsony for Hungarians, Bratislava for Slovaks). Lying as it does much nearer to Vienna than to Budapest, it would have been logical for the talented young musician to continue his studies at the prestigious music academy of the imperial capital.

That Bartók and his mother opted for Budapest was due to the [...]

10 of 64 Works

Allegro barbaro | for piano 1911
4 Old Hungarian Folksongs | for male choir a cappella –
Andante | for piano 1916
Peasant Songs and Dances Volume I | for 2 or 3 recorders –
The Giant Stags | for tenor, baritone, mixed choir and orchestra 1930
2 Dorfszenen | for soprano and chamber orchestra 1924
3 Dorfszenen | for 4 or 8 female voices and chamber orchestra 1926
Village Scenes | for female voice and piano 1924
18 Duos | for 2 flutes 1983
44 Duets | for 2 violins –

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