Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music. Bartók was one of

Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music. Bartók was one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, the study of folk music and the music of non-Western cultures.

Bartók grew up in the Greater Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was partitioned by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I. His birthplace, Nagyszentmiklós (Great St Nicholas), became Sânnicolau Mare, Romania. After his father died in 1888, Béla's mother, Paula, took her family to live in Vinogradiv (Hungarian: Nagyszöllös, now in Ukraine), and then to Prešporok (Hungarian: Pozsony, now Bratislava) in her native Slovakia. When Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 Béla and his mother found themselves on opposite sides of a border.