Béla Bartók

Bela Viktor Janos Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist who lived from 1881 to 1945 and, alongside Franz Liszt, is regarded as Hungary's greatest musical figure and one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. He pioneered the systematic collection and study of folk music across Central and Eastern Europe, work later termed ethnomusicology, and fused peasant musical traditions with modernist technique in works such as the opera Bluebeard's Castle, the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the Concerto for Orchestra and his six string quartets.