Bartok, Bela 1881-1945. Hungarian composer.
Regarded as a child prodigy, he studied music
at the Budapest Conservatory, later working
with Kodaly in recording and and transcribing
local folk music for a government project.
This led him to develop a personal musical
language combining folk elements with
mathematical concepts of tone and rhythmic
proportion. His large output includes six
string quartets, a ballet The Miraculous
Mandarin 1919, which was banned because of
its subject matter, concertos, an opera, and
graded teaching pieces for piano. He died in
the USA having fled from Hungary in 1940.