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Expressionism
Expressionism
Bela Bartok was born last March 25, 1881 in Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary
(Romania). Began lessons with his mother and made folk songs
transcription. He opened the way to new modal kinds of harmony and
irregular meter. He was a Hungarian composer and pianist, created a
distinctive musical style using folk music. He excelled in instrumental
music writing many works for solo piano pieces, six string quartets and
other chamber music, three concertos for piano, one for violin and
several compositions for orchestras, the reinterpreted, traditional-
musical forms like the rondo, fugue, and sonata. He utilized changing
meters and strong syncopations in his music style.
The six string quartet is the greatest achievement of his creative life that
lasted for full 30 years for their completion. He combined difficult and
dissonant music with mysterious sounds as description of the
composition.
Approximately 700 musical compositions include concerti,
orchestral music, piano music, instrumental music, dramatic
music, choral music, and songs. The concerto for orchestra in 1943,
is a five-movement work featuring the exceptional talents of each
various soloist in an intricately constructive piece. On the other
hand, Allegro Barbaro (1911) drew percussive sounds with swirling
rhythms where a solo piano is punctuated.
Meanwhile, Mikrokosmos contains a collection of six books as a
legacy in music introducing and familiarizing contemporary
harmony and rhythm to the piano students technically and
progressively. In 1940, he left Hungary for the United States. On
September 26, 1945, he died of leukemia in New York City Hospital.