Kirjahaku

This book is the first comprehensive biographical study of Bartok as man, composer, and folklorist, including the background and development of his unique musical language and the impact of his pioneering investigations of multinational musical folklore on his composed works. His career as an outstanding pianist, connections with contemporaries in the world of music, and the socio-economic factors that affected his creative and scholarly activities are also included among other hitherto unexplored aspects of his life and times.

Now available in paperback! Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos is a collection of 153 pieces for piano designed by the composer as a series graded according to difficulty. The pieces were written between 1926 and 1939, and have become by far the best-known series of teaching pieces by a major composer in the twentieth century. This in-depth study investigates Bartók's Mikrokosmos from three main viewpoints: the genesis of the pieces, their pedagogical value, and their stylistic qualities. The book is intended for piano teachers, students, and performers as well as anyone interested in Bartók's life and work as pianist, educator, and composer. Cloth originally published in 2002 under ISBN 0-8108-4427-3.