Béla Bartók

✍ Scribed by Bartók, Béla; Cooper, David

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Year: 2015;2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 451
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The definitive account of the life and music of Hungary’s greatest twentieth-century composer

This deeply researched biography of Béla Bartók (1881–1945) provides a more comprehensive view of the innovative Hungarian musician than ever before. David Cooper traces Bartók’s international career as an ardent ethno-musicologist and composer, teacher, and pianist, while also providing a detailed discussion of most of his works. Further, the author explores how Europe’s political and cultural tumult affected Bartók’s work, travel, and reluctant emigration to the safety of America in his final years.

Cooper illuminates Bartók’s personal life and relationships, while also expanding what is known about the influence of other musicians—Richard Strauss, Zoltán Kodály, and Yehudi Menuhin, among many others. The author also looks closely at some of the composer’s actions and behaviors which may have been manifestations of Asperger syndrome. The book, in short, is a consummate biography of an internationally admired musician.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover page......Page 1
Halftitle page......Page 2
Title page......Page 4
Copyright page......Page 5
Dedication page......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Illustrations......Page 9
Preface......Page 12
‘Sweet was my mother’s milk’: 1881–1902......Page 16
‘Now I came from the battlefield’: 1903–1904......Page 37
‘Two roads are before me’: 1905–1906......Page 58
‘Because my love has forsaken me’: 1907–1909......Page 89
‘Crossing the borders of Transylvania’: 1910–1913......Page 113
‘To plough in winter is hard work’: 1914–1918......Page 146
‘The time to rove has come’: 1919–1925......Page 182
‘The forest rustles, the fields rustle’: 1925–1928......Page 222
‘The wreath is wound around me’: 1929–1935......Page 252
‘Stars, stars, brightly shine’: 1936–1938......Page 291
‘From here is seen the graveyard’s border’: 1939–1942......Page 324
‘I see the beautiful sky’: 1942–1945......Page 360
Postlude......Page 390
List of Works......Page 397
Notes......Page 407
Bibliography......Page 425
Index......Page 432

✦ Subjects

Music;Biography;Nonfiction