some background on bela bartok and me

My big thick The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of
Music - edited by Don Michael Randel is too hard for
me to get much out of - at least about Bela Bartok - so
I will turn to google to help me out and let me tell
ya folks google has never let me down.


Bela Bartok:

~was a Composer and a Pianist

~was Hungarian

~He died the same year that I was Born

~according to google Bartok is considered to be one of the most
important Composers of the 20th Century

~Bela Bartok and Franz Liszt are the two Greatest Composers for Hungary

~but Bartok and Liszt's Music are so totally different - at least the works that
I am familiar with - when I think of Liszt I think of HARD~as Hard As It Gets -
and wonderfully passionate and beautiful - but when I think of Bartok...well
I'll get to that

~Folk Music is a key word when writing about Bartok

~here's someting interesting:  ethnomusicology.
I actually do not know what that means but google does -
and if you click on ethnomusicology you will get this
simple definition:

the study of social and cultural aspects of music
and dance in local and global contexts

but that is not what we are after here.


I Believe that the Reason I like Bela Bartok's music - besides
that really cool profile picture of him on Wikipedia - is:

The Combination Of Folk Music And The Open Sound
Of  Allegro Barbaro and also Bear Dance from Ten Easy
Pieces

They both have:

~a driving rhythm throughout bringing to mind our own
Native American beginnings

~a dissonance that appeals to me but doesn't turn me off


and both Allegro Barbaro and Bear Dance are playable for me
although AB is harder.


And both  - especially Allegro Barbaro allows me to Beat the Crap
out of my Piano without anyone (and we know who I'm talking about
here) being able to taunt me and saying Sue you are out of control
while all the while hoping that I will lose control and then he can
put me away and say see I'm caring for her
~~~

Tonality is a huge thing in Bartok's music leaving it hard to figure out
which Key his compositions are in and therefore bringing us to the
World of Atonality  - a World in which I have never resided and I'm
not sure I should go there lest I never come back.  :]



That's all for now folks.