Music Composer Bela Bartok - Essay Example

?Bela Bartok Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts 13 March Techniques Outline for an Essay on Music Composer Bela Bartok I. Introduction: This will provide an overview of the life and works of the composer, Bela Bartok, with a brief sketch on who he is and what this paper will deal with. It will also contain a thesis statement towards the end. II. Body Passage-I: The first body passage will deal with the life and education of the composer from childhood to death, his major achievements etc. III. Body Passage-II: The second body passage will deal with the social conditions existing during the life time of Bela Bartok, other contemporary musicians, trends during the time as well as how the social conditions influenced the composer. IV. Body Passage-III: This paragraph will contain a discussion about the people and their tastes during the times as well as the major influences in Bartok’s life and a comparison with other famous composers who lived during that period of time. V. Body Passage-IV: This passage will dwell on the composing style of Bartok, a discussion of his inspirations, a comparison with other musicians, his major innovations in composition etc. VI. Conclusion: The conclusion will recapitulate the major points included in the topic sentences of the body passages, restate the thesis, and sum up the essay. Bela Bartok Bela Bartok was born on 25th March 1881 in Baratian, a small town in Hungary. “Bela Bartok (1881-1945), the great Hungarian composer, was one of the most significant musicians of the twentieth century” (Hughes & Vetter 2007, 21). His father Bela senior belongs to a lower noble family of Hungary though his mother Paula hails from a Roman Catholic Serbian family in Serbia. At the early stage itself, Bela started showing talent for music and often distinguished rhythms that his mother played on piano. This was before he could even properly speak. At the age of 4, he played 40 pieces on the piano and his mother recognizing his Calibre began teaching him formally.        Bela was a sick child till the age of 5. He suffered from eczema. At the age of 7, he lost his father, and his mother shifted to Pozgony along with him and his sister Erzsebet. At Pozgony, Bela who was then 11 years, gave his first recital in public, that too his own composition which he did 2 years ago. Immediately after this, Laszio Erkel accepted him as his pupil.        Bela graduated from grammar school in 1899. Up to 1903, he studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of music in Budapest. At this academy Bela met Zoltan Kodaly, who totally influenced him, and remained his life long friend and colleague. His first major orchestral work, a symphonic poem, ‘Kossuth’, depicting the hero of Hungarian Revolution of 1848, came out in 1903. “Bartok displayed his love for music when he was only a child. It is said that even before he started talking, he could distinguish between different tunes of dance rhythms his mother played on the piano” (Bela Bartok n.d.).        He was influenced in his early work by the music of Richard Strauss whom he met him in 1902. Then in 1904, in a holiday resort, he overheard Lidi Doza sing folk songs and this marked the beginning of his life-long dedication to folk music. He was also influenced by Claude Debussy, the French Composer. Bela’s style of orchestral work resembled those of Johannes Brahmas and Richard Strauss. He wrote a lot of small piano pieces showing great interest in folk music. The first of such piece was the “‘String Quartet No.1’” (The String Quartets: Bela Bartok 2008) in 1908. He became a piano professor at the Royal Academy in the year 1907. His famous pupils were Gyongy Samdor Fritz Reiner, Lili Knaus, Emo Balogh, Jack Besson and Violet Archer.        In 1908, Bela and Kodaly jointly researched on old Magyar Folk Melodies. This collaboration coincided with the contemporary social interests in traditional culture. They discovered that Magyar Folk Music which had earlier been termed as Gypsy Music, was based on pentatonic scales, similar to Asian Folk traditions. They incorporated elements of Magyar Peasant Music in to their compositions. His style in art and musical compositions formed the synthesis of folk music, modernism and classicism. Bela’s harmonic and melodic senses were very much influenced by the folk music of Hungary, Romania, etc. Asymmetrical dance rhythms and pungent harmonies found in Bulgarian music were his favorites.        In 1909 Bartok married Marta Ziegler and they had their first son Bela III, in 1910. Bela’s one and only Opera, ‘Bluebeard’s castle’, dedicated to his wife Marta was written in 1911.He divorced Marta in 1923 after putting up with her for15 years. He married Ditta Pasztony and had his second son, Peter born in 1924.He then concentrated on collecting and arranging folk music. The first examples of his collections were in Caroathian Basin, where he rotated Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Slovakian folk musics. The out break of World War 1 forced him to wind up the expeditions and concentrated on writing and composing, ‘The Wooden Prince’ and “The String Quartet no.2”, both highly influenced by Debussy. “The Wooden Prince was Bartok's second collaboration with Bela Balazs (1884-1949), a noted Hungarian poet, dramatist, and (later in life) a theoretician of film. In 1911, Bartok wrote his only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also to a libretto by Balazs” (Laki 2009).      Bela, influenced by Arrold Schoenberg, Richard strauss and Lgor Stravinsky, wrote yet another ballet, The ‘Miraculous Mandarin’. Then came his two violin sonatas in 1921 and 1922 which were his most complex pieces structurally and harmonically. The controversial ‘The Miraculous mandarin’, based on a modern story of robbery, prostitution and murder, though started in 1918, could be performed in 1926 only due to its sexual content. His mature style demonstration reflected in all his works from 1927 onwards. Few examples are ‘Music of Strings’, ‘Percussion and Celesta’, and ‘Diverstimento for String Orchestra BB 118’. In 1936 he went to Turkey for further study and research folk music. He worked there with Turkish Composer Ahmet Adnan Saygun.  Bela Bartok-Biography by june de Toth, pianist        During World War II, Bella was tempted to flee from Hungary as he was against the Nazis. Ironically enough, Hungary was siding Germany. In 1930, when Nazis were in power, he refused to give concerts and broke off with his publishers. Due to his anti-fascist political views, he faced a lot of trouble with the Hungarian government. Bela reluctantly emigrated to USA with Ditta Pasztony in mid 1930, and settled in New York City. But the fact is that, he was never comfortable in US mentally, and could not make any compositions initially. When, finally he performed with his wife, it created only little interest in America. His son Peter Bartok joined them in New York City, and in 1942 he enrolled in the US Navy, while his elder son remained in Hungary. “Failing to achieve the success he had hoped for, tired and poverty-stricken, he was helped by Menuhin and Koussevitzy who commissioned the Concerto for Orchestra” (Bela Bartok n.d.). On a research fellowship from Columbia University, Bela and Ditta worked on Serbian and Croatian folk songs. They translated famous old Hungarian text books into English. Though his financial status was not sound, did not live and die in poverty. Initially in USA, he met the expenses from publication royalties, teaching and performance tours. Further, as Bela, had enough supporters, they were never in short of money. They helped them in all possible ways.        Bela had his first problem in 1940, when he had stiffening in his right shoulder. The symptoms increased later on and he had bouts of fever. Inspite of thorough medical examination, nothing was detected. Finally, in April 1944 it was diagnosed as leukemia and it was all over by then.        As his body failed, Bela found more and more creative energy in him, and his final set of masterpieces came in with the help of violinist Joseph Szigeti and conductor Fritz Reiner. His ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ became the most popular work during this period, although he was not there to see its full impact. The third piano concerto was almost finished before his death in which he only completed the Viola part and sketches and the work was later on completed by his pupil Tihor Serly. The concerto was polished and revised again by Bela’s son Peter in 1990 which was very closer to what Bela intended. He composed his ‘Piano Concerto No.3’, a neo-classical and graceful work, but could not complete work due to his death at the in a hospital in New York City. He died at the age of 64, on 26th september1945. It was a shame that his funeral was attended only by a very few excepting his wife Ditta, their son Peter and his pianist friend Gyorgy Sandor.        Bela’s body was interned in Hartsdale NY city. But later in 1980s, his two sons and the Hungarian government requested for his remains to be exhumed and transferred to Budapest for burial. A state funeral was arranged for him by Hungary on 7July 1988.             Bela’s music showed two trends which changed the sound of music in the 20th century dramatically. He gave a break for the diatonic system of harmony which had served composers for hundred of years. Bela was instrumental for musical inspiration by revival of nationalism as a source, and his search for new forms of tonality brought him closer to folk music. By doing so, he became influential in that stream of modernism. He exploited the techniques of indigenous music and it is reflected in his ‘Night Music’ in which he used slow movements of multi-movement ensemble. An example is the third movement ‘Adagio’ of his music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta.        His early works had a romantic style. He had shown different styles in incorporating peasant music with modern music. Bela’s influence in Debussy was reflected in his service to music, by creating an awareness of harmony and its possibility in all musicians.        The prominent characteristics of Bela’s music were influenced by ‘Caroathian Basin’, European art music, and also by the changing attitude toward tonality. His music was always tonal but it rarely used the chords or scales of tonality. “Some view Bela’s axes of symmetry in terms of atonal analytic protocols. Bela rarely used the simple aggregate actively to shape the structure of music though there were some notable examples” (Bela Bartok 2012). His works are based on two opposing tonal systems: one of acoustic scale and the other of axis system, using the golden section as structural principle. Bela faced criticism for using tonality and non tonal methods. Every piece of his was unique, to each piece and his solution was specific, and cannot be duplicated. Modal and pentatonic scales, free flowing exotic rhythms and polytonality usage, were evident in Bela’s work. Bibliography Bela Bartok. 2012. eNotes. < http://www.enotes.com/topic/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k> Bela Bartok. n.d. Medici.tv. Bela Bartok. n.d. Famous People. < http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/bela-bartok-322.php> Hughes, Peter & Vetter, Herbert F. 2007. Notable American Unitarians 1936 – 1961. Harvard Square library. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 21. Laki, Peter. 2009. The Wooden Prince. The Kennedy Center. < http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=4346> The String Quartets: Bela Bartok. 2008. Read More