Bartók Béla

Béla Viktor János Bartók (/ˈbɑːrtɒk, -toʊk/; Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈbeːlɒ ˈbɒrtoːk]; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and an ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers (Gillies 2001). Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology.

Béla Bartók Jr. was born in the small Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (since 1920 Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. Bartók had a diverse ancestry. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod county (Móser 2006a, 44). Although his paternal grandmother was of a Roman Catholic Serbian family, Bartók's father, Béla Bartók Sr., considered himself to be an ethnic-born Hungarian. Béla Bartók's mother, Paula (born Paula Voit), was an ethnic German, though she spoke Hungarian fluently (Hooker 2001, 16). She was a native of Turčiansky Svätý Martin (today Martin, Slovakia).

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