Who was born first, Béla Bartók or Dmitri Shostakovich?
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók ( ; ] ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and an ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and 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 ethnomusicology.
Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (] ; 7 July 1860, Kaliště, Bohemia, now Czech Republic – 18 May 1911, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) was an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.