First published in 1953, Halsey Stevens's The Life and Music of Béla Bartók was hailed as a triumph of musicology and quickly established itself as the classic text. Stevens combined an authoritiative, balanced account of the Hungarian composer's life with candid insightful analyses of his numerous works. To Stevens, the high point of Bartók's genius was the chamber music, which he assessed as of a quality unrivalled by any other composer of the early twentieth century. But he evaluated Bartók's entire output with mastery, picking out the composer's strengths and weaknesses and conveying the essence of his compositional techniques. Stevens's views have greatly influenced the study of Bartók and Hungarian music over the last four decades.

Attractively priced and published in paperback, the book now appears in a third edition, prepared by the Bartók scholar, Malcolm Gillies. A comprehensive chronological list of works is added, together with a select bibliography and discography. Minor revisions to the text are suggested in a new Introduction, and the text is enhanced by eight pages of photographs, some of them little known.