Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology.
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".
Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of the 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era. It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism—the intellectual, artistic, and literary movement that became prominent in Western culture from about 1798 until 1837.
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education.
The Mazurka is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent mazur's "strong accents unsystematically placed on the second or third beat". The Mazurka, alongside the polka dance, became popular at the ballrooms and salons of Europe in the 19th century, particularly through the notable works by Frédéric Chopin. The mazurka and mazurek are often confused in Western literature as the same musical form.
The polonaise is a dance originating in Poland, and one of the five Polish national dances in 3
4 time. The original Polish-language name of the dance is chodzony, denoting a walking dance. It is one of the finest dances representing Poland's cultural dance tradition. The polonaise dance influenced European ballrooms, folk music and European classical music.
Hungary has made many contributions to the fields of folk, popular and classical music. Hungarian folk music is a prominent part of the national identity and continues to play a major part in Hungarian music. The Busójárás carnival in Mohács is a major folk music event in Hungary, formerly featuring the long-established and well-regarded Bogyiszló orchestra. Instruments traditionally used in Hungarian folk music include the citera, cimbalom, cobza, doromb, duda, kanászkürt, tárogató, tambura, tekero and ütőgardon. Traditional Hungarian music has been found to bear resemblances to the musical traditions of neighbouring Balkan countries and Central Asia.
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist. He was a member of the modernist Young Poland movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Ukrainian music covers diverse and multiple component elements of the music that is found in the Western and Eastern musical civilization. It also has a very strong indigenous Slavic and Christian uniqueness whose elements were used among the areas that surround modern Ukraine.
Belarus is an Eastern European country with a rich tradition of folk and religious music. The country's folk music traditions can be traced back to the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The country's musical traditions spread with its people to countries like Russia, Canada, United States, Kazakhstan and Latvia. The people of Belarus were exposed mostly to Russian pop music during this period and also after independence in 1991. In 2002, however, President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a decree requiring 50% of all FM broadcast music to be Belarusian in origin, and since 1 January 2005 the rule has been even stricter. However, it does not regulate the language of the songs, so most of the music which is broadcast is still in Russian.
Mykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic period. In his time he was the central figure of Ukrainian music, with an oeuvre that includes operas, art songs, choral works, orchestral and chamber pieces, and a wide variety of solo piano music. He is often credited with founding a national music tradition during the Ukrainian national revival, in the vein of contemporaries such as Grieg in Norway, The Five in Russia as well as Smetana and Dvořák in what is now the Czech Republic.
Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov was a Russian composer, teacher and conductor.
Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor, organist and pedagogue. He wrote many popular art songs and operas, including The Haunted Manor and Halka, and his music is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is generally referred to as "the father of Polish national opera". Since the 1990s Stanisław Moniuszko has been recognized in Belarus as an important figure to Belarusian culture as well.
An art song is a Western vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment, and usually in the classical art music tradition. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the collective genre of such songs. An art song is most often a musical setting of an independent poem or text, "intended for the concert repertory" "as part of a recital or other relatively formal social occasion". While many vocal music pieces are easily recognized as art songs, others are more difficult to categorize. For example, a wordless vocalise written by a classical composer is sometimes considered an art song and sometimes not.
Hungarian folk music includes a broad array of Central European styles, including the recruitment dance verbunkos, the csárdás and nóta. It is characterised by complex melodic patterns, rhythmic diversity, ornamentalisation and the use of a distinctive blend of traditional instruments. Instruments traditionally used in Hungarian folk music include the citera, cimbalom, cobza, doromb, duda, kanászkürt, mandolin, tárogató, tambourine, tambura, tekero and ütőgardon.
Wilhelm Würfel, aka Wenzel Würfel was a Czech composer, pianist and conductor.
Polish opera may be broadly understood to include operas staged in Poland and works written for foreign stages by Polish composers, as well as opera in the Polish language.
The Jewish art music movement began at the end of the 19th century in Russia, with a group of Russian Jewish classical composers dedicated to preserving Jewish folk music and creating a new, characteristically Jewish genre of classical music. The music it produced used Western classical elements, featuring the rich chromatic harmonies of Russian late Romantic music, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music. The group founded the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, a movement that spread to Moscow, Poland, Austria, and later Palestine and the United States. Although the original society existed formally for only 10 years, its impact on the course of Jewish music was profound. The society, and the art music movement it fostered, inspired a new interest in the music of Eastern European Jewry throughout Europe and America. It laid the foundations for the Jewish music and Klezmer revival in the United States, and was a key influence in the development of Israeli folk and classical music.
Over the years 1825–1849, Frédéric Chopin wrote at least 59 compositions for piano called Mazurkas. Mazurka refers to one of the traditional Polish dances.
Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, and educator. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of lyricism.
