Bartok

Bela Bartok (1881 - 1945)

Bartok is a big name for any pianist. He was, as I see it, one of the last great pianist-composers, He himself being an excellent pianist, and a huge composer as well. He made it his goal to meld Hungary (his native country) into the world of western classical music. He is also famous for his use of Hungarian folk melodies. He actually went all over the Hungarian country-side collecting folk tunes, which he would use later in his music.

We divide his life into different periods (like Beethoven). The first being from 1907 - 1917, which was characterized by his "folky-ness," and include works like his Rhapsody Op. 1, Bagatelles, the Allegro Barbaro, the 15 Peasant Songs/Dances, and the popular suite Op. 14.

In what we call his second period, Bartok experimented with more rhythmic thingamabobs and more dissonant sounds, and we soon find Bartok's obsession with 4ths and tri-tones. Bartok has a number of characterizing features, including the 4ths and tt's. Bartok's music is usually quite dry, not quite A-tonal but most ceratainly modal, and even bi-modal or bi-tonal, he uses ostinatoes quite often, he music is very motivic, and his use of odd metic entities, such as contiuously changing meters, and what not.

He has alot of famous rep to mention.
For solo piano:

Rhapsody Op. 1, Bagatells Op. 6, Romanian Dances Op. 8a, Suite Op. 14, Etudes Op. 18 (which are bloddy hard), Improvisations on Hungarian Folk Songs Op. 20, Allegro Barbaro, 15 Hungarian Peasent Songs, the Sonata, the Out of Doors Suite, and the 6 books of Microkosmos.