Bart籀k's music is greatly prized by concertgoers, yet we know little about the intellectual milieu that gave rise to his artistry. Bart籀k is often seen as a lonely genius emerging from a gray
background of an "underdeveloped country." Now Judit Frigyesi offers a broader perspective on Bart籀k's art by grounding it in the social and cultural life of turn-of-the-century Hungary and the
intense creativity of its modernist movement. Bart籀k spent most of his life in Budapest, an exceptional man living in a remarkable milieu. Frigyesi argues that Hungarian modernism in general
and Bart籀k's aesthetic in particular should be understood in terms of a collective search for wholeness in life and art and for a definition of identity in a rapidly changing world. Is it still
possible, Bart籀k's generation of artists asked, to create coherent art in a world that is no longer whole? Bart籀k and others were preoccupied with this question and developed their aesthetics
in response to it. In a discussion of Bart籀k and of Endre Ady, the most influential Hungarian poet of the time, Frigyesi demonstrates how different branches of art and different personalities
responded to the same set of problems, creating oeuvres that appear as reflections of one another. She also examines Bart籀k's Bluebeard's Castle, exploring philosophical and poetic ideas
of Hungarian modernism and linking Bart籀k's stylistic innovations to these concepts.
