Zoltán Kodály

Hungarian classical composer and ethnomusicologist

• Born: December 16, 1882
• Birthplace: Krecskemét, Hungary
• Died: March 6, 1967
• Place of death: Budapest, Hungary

Kodály was a composer and an ethnomusicologist devoted to preserving the works of his native Hungary. He had a great impact in music education, and his pedagogical approach, known as the Kodály method, teaches musical literacy and skills to children worldwide.

The Life

Zoltán Kodály (zohl-TAHN koh-DI) was born to a violinist (his father) and a singer and pianist (his mother) and was schooled in Galánta and Nagyszombat. He learned to play the piano and orchestral stringed instruments, he sang in the cathedral school choir, and he composed. Kodály exhibited an abiding interest in Hungarian cultural forms, which proved fundamental to his creative life and career.

In 1900 he entered Budapest University to study comparative literature, while pursuing studies at the Academy of Music, where he received degrees in composition and pedagogy. Realizing the potential loss of village song material through urbanization, he scoured the Hungarian countryside, collecting folk songs, which led to his 1906 Ph.D. dissertation, Strophic Structure in Hungarian Folk Song.

Kodály traveled to Paris, where he studied with Charles Widor and discovered the music of Claude Debussy. In 1907 he returned to Budapest to accept a position teaching theory and composition at the Academy of Music, during which time he composed several works for chamber ensembles. He also became a lifelong friend and mentor to his countryman Béla Bartók. They collaborated in folk-song collecting and in developing analytical methods for the material, which profoundly affected their individual compositional styles.

Ethnomusicological fieldwork and compositional activities continued through World War I, after which Kodály devoted himself to writing articles and reviews. He established an international reputation as a composer and conductor with his oratorio, Psalmus hungaricus, in 1923. His work as a composer continued throughout the rest of his life, and he was respected for his small- and medium-scale works in the major compositional genres. He had a particularly fruitful relationship with the English as a result of their championing his works at the annual Three Choirs Festival beginning in the 1930’s.

Kodály’s efforts in preserving folk music led him to address his country’s music education system. In the 1930’s he initiated a radical reform of school music, and he wielded sufficient political clout to place his methodology in the daily curriculum of Hungarian schools. He remained in Budapest in World War II despite harrowing incidents, including briefly fleeing the city for a country monastery and giving shelter to persecuted Jews. Although he retired from full-time teaching in 1942, he continued throughout his life to research Hungarian folk music, compose, conduct, write, and lecture internationally. He served on important councils and committees, received numerous honors, and even remarried in 1959, the year after his first wife’s death. His last major work, Laudes organi, for chorus and organ, showed his undiminished compositional genius.

The Music

Generally speaking, Kodály’s composition was grounded in his research in Hungarian folk song and in a steadfast belief in the primacy of the human voice. Ferenc Bónis, who writes about Hungarian composers, divides Kodály’s creative life into three periods. The first (1904 to 1923) demonstrates Kodály’s tendency to engage in the prevalent European-salon forms of chamber music and art songs. The early instrumental pieces exhibit declamatory, almost recitativelike material. In the second period (1924 to 1935), his compositions demonstrate a sophisticated appropriation of numerous elements, including his vast knowledge of folk music and a broad form of neoclassicism with inspiration from historical models. A true synthesis characterizes the period of 1936 to the end of his life. His compositions show a carefully nuanced attitude toward form and voice leading.

Serenade. Written for two violins and viola, Serenade represents the culminating achievement of Kodály’s chamber-work period. Despite the politically and personally turbulent events in his life during its composition (1919-1920), he forged a joyful work displaying his appropriation of French Impressionism mixed with German classicism. The piece is unusual in that a viola substitutes for a more standard cello, and it combines traditional formal structures with a narrative program. There are the sonata form of the first movement, the aaba of the second, and a further development in the third. The piece describes three musicians serenading a woman at the window, the song of her lover, lighthearted games of mutual rejection, and ultimate union ending with a dance.

Psalmus hungaricus. Kodály’s first work for a large ensemble, tenor soloist, chorus, orchestra, and organ premiered in Budapest in 1923 along with compositions by Bartók and Ernő Dohnányi. It voiced a deeply spiritual and personal lament at the end of a dark period in Kodály’s life. The unstable political situation in Hungary had reduced him from celebrated head of the Music Academy to being shamed, being briefly outcast, and finally being reinstated. He saw this as not only a personal trial but also one that universally epitomized the plight of the Hungarian people and of the history of civilization.

The text is drawn from sixteenth century poet Mihály Vég’s translation of Psalm Fifty-five, penned during the Turkish occupation of Hungary. The voice is that of a complaining King David oppressed by wicked men. Ultimately, God hears, and the chorus ends in hushed, hopeful prayer. The piece met with immediate acclaim, and it went on to open the 1926 festival in Zurich alongside works of Arthur Honegger, Arnold Shoenberg, and Anton von Webern.

Háry János. Opera did not have a long and rich tradition in Hungary as it had in most of Europe, and it was not until Ferenc Erkel (1810-1893) that indigenous works appeared. His two operas entered the repertory for a time, but later Hungarian composers were not successful in the medium, their creations either too Wagnerian or merely pastiches of popular art songs. Bartók had made a superb contribution to the stage with Bluebeard’s Castle (1918), but its utter failure in the minds of the Hungarian public taught Kodály a lesson. He wrote Háry János between 1925 and 1926, partly in an attempt to arouse in his compatriots an indigenous musical language. The opera constitutes a richly orchestrated appropriation of folk elements, including the cimbalom, a Hungarian hammered dulcimer.

The title character is a historical figure, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, who daily describes his adventures in the small village tavern. The story focuses on how the emperor’s daughter falls in love with him, how he single-handedly defeats the emperor, how he restores order in Vienna, and how he brings the emperor’s daughter home with him. The epic carries the essence of the Hungarian dream and the Magyar people’s love for their ancestral land. Kodály included authentic folk songs and dances, as well as exquisite examples of choral writing. The opera become well known through the six-movement suite he excerpted from it.

Dances of Galánta. Kodály held special memories of his childhood spent in Galánta, now in western Slovakia. This symphonic poem recalls the game songs of his schoolmates, whose voices he loved to remember, as well as the dance forms, particularly the verbunkos music of the Gypsies of the region. It is not known how long the ideas for this piece had germinated, but the piece was first given at the eightieth anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society Orchestra. It is a light and unusually consonant work that general audiences find instantly appealing, particularly in its dance rhythms, alternating slow and fast sections, and major-minor modalities. The English and American press of the time praised it for its brilliant orchestration and criticized it for its lack of substance.

Missa brevis. Kodály’s schooling was steeped in Catholic chant and polyphonic traditions. When a request came in 1942 for music to accompany a low mass (for organ alone) at a country church, he responded by writing a work that a few years later easily adapted to the texts of the ordinary mass. It contains the usual movements, although it is framed by an organ Introit (opening) and an Ite missa est (conclusion). In addition to the traditional harmonic structure of the work, there is particular emphasis on the dramatic import of certain portions, such as the Miserere (have mercy) and Dona nobis pacem (give us peace). The composer once confessed in a letter that the Missa brevis expresses the emotions he lived through during the war, which explains the subtitle, In tempore belli.

Musical Legacy

Kodály helped transform the people of Hungary into one of the most musically active and musically literate in the world. The pedagogical approach he created in the 1950’s for Hungarian schools has been studied, adapted, and applied in the industrialized world, and in GermanyCarl Orff created a similar methodology. There was a move away from teaching so-called music appreciation in schools toward a renewed interest in comprehensive musicianship, singing, musical literacy, and aesthetics. Folk music, as Kodály said, serves as a bridge to learning, understanding, and performing European art music.

Kodály’s output as a composer might appear small compared to that of others. He believed that a composer should not write unless he has something important to say. His philosophy is reflected in the quality of his works, as well as in the diversity of compositional style and the elements expressly suited to each genre. His music authentically incorporates plainchant, Renaissance harmony, Baroque polyphony, French Impressionism, and whole-tone, pentatonic, and Lydian modes. Bartók asserted that Kodály was not an innovator but a summarizer and a champion of national classicism. Kodály encouraged many other composers, particularly through his teaching in Budapest, to develop their own Hungarian voices apart from the predominant German school. Kodály’s successful students were legion, and his influence even left its mark on composers who did not study with him, including avant-gardists such as György Ligeti and György Kurtág, both students of Kodály’s students, Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas.

Principal Works

chamber works: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 2, 1910; Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8, 1918; String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, 1918; Serenade, Op. 12, 1922 (for two violins and viola); Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7, 1924.

choral works:Psalmus hungaricus, 1923; Missa brevis, 1948; The Music Makers, 1964; Laudes organi, 1966.

opera (music): Háry János, 1926 (libretto by Béla Paulini and Zsolt Harsányi; based on the play Az obsitos [The Veteran], by János Garay).

orchestral works:Régi magyar katonadalok, 1918 (Old Hungarian Soldiers’ Song); Szinházi nyitány, 1928 (Theatre Overture); Marosszéki táncok, 1930 (Dances of Marosszék); Nyári este, 1930 (Summer Evening); Galántai táncok, 1933 (Dances of Galánta); Felszállott a páva, 1939 (Variations on a Hungarian folk song, “The Peacock”).

writings of interest:A magyar népzene, 1937 (Hungarian Folk Music, 1960); Énekeljünk tisztán, 1941 (Let Us Sing Correctly, 1952); Háromszäz harminchárom olvasógyakorlat, 1943 (Three-hundred Thirty-three Elementary Exercises in Sight-Singing, 1963); Húszonnégy kis kánon a fekete billentyűkön, 1945 (Twenty-four Little Canons on the Black Keys, 1955).

Bibliography

Breuer, János. A Guide to Kodály. Translated by Maria Steiner. Budapest: Corvina Books, 1990. A listener’s guide to the composer’s works, with an analysis, the history, and the reception of each major work. The book includes sections that summarize his songs, his piano pieces, and his choral works.

Eösze, László. Zoltán Kodály: His Life and Work. Translated by István Farkas and Gyula Gulyás. London: Collet’s, 1962. This book, written by a fellow Hungarian who intimately knew the composer and his work, begins with a brief biography, and then it thoroughly examines Kodály’s lifework as a composer, ethnomusicologist, and educator.

Kodály, Zoltán. The Selected Writings of Zoltán Kodály. Edited by Ferenc Bónis and Zenemükiadó Vállalat, translated by Lili Halápy and Fred Macnicol. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1974. Offers the reader insights into the composer’s unique views on other composers, folk music, and music education.

Vikár, László, ed. Reflections on Kodály. Budapest: International Kodály Society, 1985. A collection of twenty-four articles by individuals who knew Kodály or studied with his colleagues and students. The articles discuss the history of the implementation of the Kodály approach in various countries.

Young, Percy M. Zoltán Kodály: A Hungarian Musician. London: Ernest Benn, 1964. A balanced and readable portrayal of Kodály’s life, with a focus on the composer’s musical and social development, the Psalmus hungaricus, his influence, and his educational ideas.