Bihar

In addition to exploring the hitherto unknown treasures of Hungarian folk music, as a composer and folklorist Béla Bartók (1881-1945) worked tirelessly to collect and study the folk music of the surrounding peoples. He looked for ancient, old-style melodies: those that were the most typical of different ethnicities. He found these in peasant communities where, in the early 20th century, people still led a traditional form of life. He also examined how neighboring communities influenced each other's folk music. From 1909 to 1918 he collected nearly 3500 Romanian instrumental and vocal melodies.