Bela Bartok1881-1945

•Hungerian Composer born in Banat.•Talented in music from a very young age •Formal training began at age 4•1899-1903: Student at the Royal Academy of Music

–Met Zoltán Kodály•1902: Met Richard Strauss- major influence•1904: Fascination with folk music began

–String Quartet No. 1 (1908)•1907: Began teaching at the Academy

Bela Bartok1881-1945

• 1908-Expedition to collect Hungarian folk melodies

– Pentatonic, Oriental folk traditions– Immediately began being used in their comps.

• 1911-Bluebeard’s Castle (only opera)• Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian, Algerian

and Bulgarian folk music collected.• WW1 outbreak- returned to composition

– The Wooden Prince– String Quartet No. 2

Bela Bartok1881-1945

• 1918: The Miraculous Mandarin

• 1936- travels to Turkey to study

folk music

• WW2-Emmigrated to the United States.

• Known in US as pianist, music historian and teacher, but not composer.

• 1944: Diagnosed with Leukemia

Bartok’s Music

• First Hungarian Composer• “Bartok pizzicato”• Ethnomusicology• Concerto for Orchestra• Bluebeard’s Castle:

– Only two people on stage– “Unstagable” – Colored lights as part of libretto

• Miraculous Mandarin:– One act ballet– Banned because it caused a ‘scandal’

Charles Ives1874-1954

• Born in Danbury Connecticut

• Taught by father

• Age 14-church organist

• 1894-Yale

• 1899: Charles H. Raymond & Co.

• Composed and worked as an organist in spare time.

• 1927-Stopped composing– Revised works

Style• Bitonality-two keys at once• Development of American patriotic songs• “11 note chord”• The Unanswered Question: 1906

– Premiered 1940– “The contemplation of a serious matter”– Three separate components

• String orchestra "the silences of the druids—who know, see and hear nothing."

• Solo trumpet, placed behind audience "The Invisible Answer"

• 4 flutes "The Perennial Question of Existence"