Bartók is, overall, a great guy. He played the piano and composed lots of stuff. My favorite is a book of duets for violoncello which are really fun. This is actually a collection of converted duets from a bigger book of duets for violin, but I think that some of them sound better on the cello. I honor Bartók for his talent at composing stuff that is so dissonant that your audience will run out with their hands over their ears. (Tritones! Tritones! Tritones!) No, I am not kidding. I love augmented fourths (a.k.a. tritones, diminished fifths, and devil's intervals) and things like them for the simple reason that they sound so horrible. Maybe it's just my nature.
The following is a list of websites where you can find real information about Béla Bartók.
http://www.igs.net/~pawelmic/bartok.htm
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/6334.html