Béla Bartók

It’s the birthday of the great Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, and teacher Béla Bartók, born in Sânnicolau Mare, Romania (1881).

Bartók displayed signs of his musical talent almost from birth. He could distinguish between different musical rhythms before he learned to speak in full sentences, and by the age of four he had taught himself to play 40 songs on the piano.

While on vacation in 1904, Bartók overheard a nanny from Transylvania singing folk songs to her children and he became enamored of folk music and its study. He dedicated his life to collecting over 6,000 folk songs from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Algeria, and Turkey, recording them on a gramophone. Bartók’s own work was influenced by the music he encountered throughout the regions he visited.

Bartók was a vocal anti-fascist who refused concerts to Germany after the Nazi regime rose to power. He fled Europe shortly after the outbreak of World War II, eventually settling in New York City until his death in 1945.