Bela Bartok was born in Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary, on March 25, 1881. His
mother was a teacher and pianist. He began his musical studies on the piano at age five when his mother gave him his first piano lesson on his fifth birthday. His father was director of a government agriculture school. His father's name was also Bela Bartok. He played the piano and cello, and composed short dance pieces. His father died in 1888, when Bela was seven. His mother supported the children by giving piano lessons. After his fathers death the Bartok family moved to Czechoslovakia where Bela continued his piano studies and took up composition. At the age of nine he began to compose. His great gifts as a pianist soon became evident. At age eleven he made his first public appearance, playing his own music. After several more years of practicing his keyboard skills, Bartok enrolled in the Royal Academy of music in Budapest. After he entered the Academy of Music at Budapest in 1899 his composing temporarily stopped because he became involved in the movement of nationalism in Hungary. In 1902 the first Budapest performance of Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra inspired him to resume creative work. While at the Academy Bartok met a famous composer named Zoltan Kodally. They became good friends. Bartok started his professional career as a pianist after hi graduation in 1902. By 1903 Bartok had found his goal in national music. Bartok was determined to write not just music but Hungarian music. Bartok's first major composition was the symphonic poem Kossuth written in 1903. Kodally was a good influence for Bartok. They studied Hungarian folk music and published a set of folk songs in 1906. Bartok and Kodally worked well together. The folk songs of Hungary became an important part of Bartok's musical compositions. Bartok traveled to Slovak peasant villages to collect folk songs. In 1907 Bartok became professor of piano at the academy of Music in Budapest. He taught there for 30 years. In 1911 they founded the New Hungarian Musical Society. Bartok composed pieces more for instruments than voices. Bartok first visited the United States in 1927. During World War II, Bartok and his young wife, Ditta, made the United States their permanent home, even though he was better appreciated in France and England. Bartok became sick and his strength failed rapidly. He could not perform in public. Bartok was working on his third piano Concerto up until his death. Bartok died in New York September 26, 1945, from leukemia. Bela Bartok was said to be the greatest composer of his country.
 
 
 
 
 

Bibliography
1 poster from Klondike

2 The McGraw-Hill
Encyclopedia of World
Biography. 1973 pages404-406.

3 Classics World Bela Bartok
File:///F|/intranet/helgerma/classics/bartok.htm

4 The new Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musitions 1980 Edited by
Stanley Sadie Volume 2 pg197-218