Kodály, Zoltán

Ko·dál·y (kō'dīʹ, kôʹdä-yə), Zoltán. 1882-1967.

Hungarian composer whose works include the opera Háry János (1926) and the orchestral work Missa Brevis (1945).

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born Dec. 16, 1882, Kecskemét, Hung.

died March 6, 1967, Budapest

Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, and music educator.

He played various instruments as a child and studied simultaneously at the university and the Budapest Academy of Music, earning diplomas in composition and teaching and a doctorate in Hungarian folk song. With Béla Bartók, a lifelong friend, he compiled the important Hungarian Folk Songs (1906), and he continued to make field recordings until World War I made it impossible. He came to international attention with his Psalmus hungaricus (1923) and the opera Háry János (1926). Kodály created an individual style that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. He devoted much of his energy to developing a school music curriculum that would develop children's musicality, and the "Kodály method" remains in wide use.

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▪ Hungarian composer

born Dec. 16, 1882, Kecskemét, Hung.

died March 6, 1967, Budapest

 prominent composer and authority on Hungarian folk music. He was also important as an educator not only of composers but also of teachers and, through his students, contributed heavily to the spread of musical education in Hungary. He was a chorister in his youth at Nagyszombat (now Trnava), Czech., where he wrote his first compositions. In 1902 he studied composition in Budapest. He toured his country in his first quest for folk-song sources in the year before his graduation from Budapest University with a thesis (1906) on the structure of Hungarian folk song. After studying for a short time in Paris with the composer-organist Charles Widor, he became teacher of theory and composition at the Budapest Academy of Music (1907–41).

      With Béla Bartók, whom he met in 1906, he published editions of folk songs (1906–21). His folk-song collection formed the basis of Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungariae (established 1951).

      Kodály created an individual style, Romantic in flavour and less percussive than Bartók, that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. His works, many of which are widely performed, include Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest; Háry János (1926), a comic opera; two sets of Hungarian dances for orchestra, Marosszék Dances (1930) and Dances of Galánta (1933); a Te Deum (1936); a concerto for orchestra (1941); Missa Brevis (1942); an opera, Cinka Panna (1948); Symphony in C Major (1961); and chamber music, including two cello sonatas (1909–10; 1915), two string quartets (1908; 1916–17), and Serenade, for two violins and viola (1919–20).

      Kodály's scholarly writings include Die ungarische Volksmusik (1956; Folk Music of Hungary), as well as numerous articles for ethnographic and musical journals.

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