Bela Bartok short biography

Bela Bartok was one of the major and most important composers of the 20^th Century. Bartok was also an outstanding piano virtuoso. Bartok, like his friend Zoltan Kodaly, was the best known collector of folk music in Hungary. Bartok who never concealed his displeasure with the Hungarian government of the period, was never officially recognized in his native country during his lifetime. In 1940, Bartok settled in the United States and died of leukemia in 1945.