György Kurtág, a Hungarian composer, considers Bartók's music his 'mother tongue' and has created numerous transcriptions of Bach's chorale preludes.
Composition History
Béla Bartók's Second Suite for orchestra, Op. 4, was influenced by the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss.
Composition History
Bartók created a version of his Second Suite for two pianos in 1941 in America to expand his concert repertoire with his wife, Dittá.
Compositional Technique
Bartók's Second Suite features a 'diabolic fugato' in its second movement, possibly inspired by Liszt's Faust-Symphonie or Sonata.
Composer Biography
Béla Bartók's monumental pedagogical work, Mikrokosmos, consists of six books of piano miniatures, with the first two written for his son Péter.
Critical Reception
Bartók's Second Suite received mixed reactions at its premiere, with some critics calling it a 'malevolent, ingenious monstrosity'.
Compositional Technique
The third movement of Bartók's Second Suite combines an echo of Wagner's Tristan with Hungarian folk music elements like the tárogató, a Hungarian woodwind instrument.
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