Bartók
Béla Bartók (1881–1945) was a Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist who fused folk music research with modernist techniques to create a unique musical language.
In Depth
Bartók was a pioneer of ethnomusicology, travelling through rural Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and North Africa with early recording equipment to document thousands of folk songs. This research fundamentally shaped his compositional voice, producing works that are rhythmically vital, harmonically adventurous, and structurally rigorous.
His six string quartets are considered among the greatest of the 20th century, rivaling Beethoven's in their ambition and depth. His Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, and three piano concertos are pillars of the modern repertoire. He emigrated to the United States in 1940, fleeing fascism, and died in poverty in New York.
Bartók and his colleague Kodály recorded over 10,000 folk melodies on wax cylinders across Eastern Europe — the largest systematic folk music collection ever assembled at that time.