Bela Bartok

Description

This biography of Bela Bartok includes a contextual study of his work. Illustrated with contemporary photographs of people and events, it show the links between his life, his music and the turbulence of two world wars. Born into the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bartok became a fervent nationalist, setting off with his friend Zoltan Kodaly to record the folklore of his native Hungary before it was destroyed by the march of progress. He ventured further into Romania and North Africa in pursuit of original cultures. These sounds and experiences helped Bartok find his voice as a composer. Despite his nationalism, his distaste for authoritarian rule brought him into conflict with a crypto-fascist government in Hungary and with the Germany of Adolf Hitler. While composing some of his works, he felt increasingly pressured and in 1940, after the death of his mother, Bartok left Hungary for the United States. Homesick, short of money and stricken with leukaemia, he composed the "Concerto for Orchestra" and, on his deathbed in 1945, was completing a "Third Piano Concerto". This text is part of the 20th-century composers series, examining composers in a biographical context, and offering a comprehensive study of key figures in the creation of 20th-century music. None of the books in the series presume a knowledge of specialized terms or musical notation. Each book in the series features a list of works, a bibliography, and a discography.

Kenneth Chalmers is an author, translator and composer who has written on Bartok, Berg, Stravinsky, Verdi and Weill, and collaborated on Decca's 20-volume Mozart Almanac.

'As a series, Phaidon's 20th Century Composers has brought remarkable variety and a welter of information, both necessary and delightfully trivial. Intended both for the general reader and for the more enthusiatically musical...' (The Scotsman)