Bela Bartok Quotes

Bela Viktor János Bartok was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of ethnomusicology. From 1899 to 1903, Bartók studied piano under István Thomán, a former student of Franz Liszt, and composition under János Koessler at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. There he met Zoltán Kodály, who influenced him greatly and became his lifelong friend and colleague. In 1903, Bartók wrote his first major orchestral work, Kossuth, a symphonic poem which honored Lajos Kossuth, hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The Third Piano Concerto was nearly finished at his death. Bela Bartok died at age 64 in a hospital in New York City from complications of leukemia on September 26, 1945.