question: What Hungarian composer wrote a piece for solo piano which contained Romanian, Arabic, and North African rhythmic influences?
answer: Béla Bartók
context: Title: Ballade No. 1 (Liszt)
  Passage: Ballade No. 1 in D-flat major, S.170, is a solo piano piece by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, composed between 1845 and 1848.  In the original edition it contained the title ""Le Chant Du Croisé"" or ""The Chant of the Crusader"".  A typical performance of the piece lasts about 7 to 8 minutes.
  Title: Distant Memories
  Passage: Distant Memories is the third piece from Alexina Louie's "Music for Piano".  It was commissioned by the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects in 1982.  This piece features the changing meters and "senza misura", meaning "without measure".  The other pieces in this songbook is "Changes", "The Enchanted Bells", and "Once Upon a Time".  The four short solo piano pieces explore contemporary musical concepts and techniques while remaining accessible to younger students.  As this was her first set of compositions for solo piano, it is fitting that Louie dedicated the pieces to her former childhood piano teacher and mentor Jean Lyons.
  Title: Piano piece
  Passage: A piano piece or piece for piano (German: "Klavierstück" , ] ; French: "morceau [or] pièce pour (le) piano" , ] ) is a piece of music for piano.  It is a generic name for any composition for the instrument, but when capitalised (Piano Piece, Piece for Piano) the name is used to indicate a (usually) single-movement composition for solo piano that has not been given a more specific name (such as Sonatina, "Allegro de concert" or "Le Bananier"), for example:
  Title: Suite, Op. 14 (Bartók)
  Passage: The Suite, Op. 14, Sz.  62, BB 70 is a piece for solo piano written by Béla Bartók.  It was written in February 1916, published in 1918, and debuted by the composer on April 21, 1919, in Budapest.  The Suite is one of Bartók's most significant works for piano, only comparable with his 1926 Piano Sonata.  Though much of Bartók's work makes frequent use of Eastern European folk music, this suite is one of the few pieces without melodies of folk origin.  However, Romanian, Arabic, and North African rhythmic influences can still be found in some movements.  Originally intending the suite to be a five-movement work, Bartók later decided against the idea and discarded the second movement, the "Andante", which was published only posthumously in the October 1955 issue of "Új Zenei Szemle" (New Musical Review).
  Title: Études (Ligeti)
  Passage: The Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed a cycle of 18 études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001.  They are considered one of the major creative achievements of his last decades, and one of the most significant sets of piano studies of the 20th century, combining virtuoso technical problems with expressive content, following in the line of the études of Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, and Alexander Scriabin but addressing new technical ideas as a compendium of the concepts Ligeti had worked out in his other works since the 1950s.  Pianist Jeremy Denk wrote that they "are a crowning achievement of his career and of the piano literature; though still new, they are already classics."
  Title: Sonatina (Bartók)
  Passage: Sonatina, Sz.  55, BB.  69 is a piece for solo piano written in 1915 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.  Initially entitled Sonatina on Romanian folk tunes, it is based on folk tunes Bartók collected in his neighbour country Romania, which, even though he proclaimed Hungarian folk music was clearly superior, was a direct source of inspiration all along his active years.
  Title: Concerto for Solo Piano (Alkan)
  Passage: Concerto for Solo Piano (French: "Concerto pour piano seul" ) is a 3-movement solo piano piece written by Charles-Valentin Alkan.  The pieces are part of a 12 piece cycle entitled "Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs" (12 Studies in the Minor Keys), published in 1857 (although it may have been written some years earlier).  With sections marked "Tutti", "Solo" and "Piano", the piece requires the soloist to present the voices of both the orchestra and the soloist.  The pianist Jack Gibbons comments: "The style and form of the music take on a monumental quality—rich, thickly set textures and harmonies ... conjure up the sound world of a whole orchestra and tax the performer, both physically and mentally, to the limit."
  Title: Starr Parodi
  Passage: Starr Parodi (born in Los Angeles, California) is an American composer, pianist, conductor, arranger, and music director.  She has won multiple BMI most performed music awards, Key Art and Telly Awards.  In May 2017 Starr's most recent album "The Heart Of Frida" a cinematic collection of solo piano works inspired by the late legendary artist Frida Kahlo, was awarded ZMR's "Piano Album Of The Year - Solo" by International Radio Broadcasters.  Starr's solo piano recording "Common Places" was awarded Solo Piano Recording of the Year by solopianoradio.com in 2007 and in 2005 she received an RIAA Gold Record for her recording and updated arrangement of the "James Bond Theme".
  Title: Béla Bartók
  Passage: 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.
  Title: Feuille d'album, S.165 (Liszt)
  Passage: Feuille d'Album (S.165) is a solo piano piece by Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, composed in 1841 and published in 1844.
citations: Béla Bartók Suite, Op. 14 (Bartók)