Kodaly
ORDERBY-NAME: Kodaly, Zoltan
ALIAS: None
DATE OF BIRTH: December 16, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH: Kecskemet, Hungary
DATE OF DEATH: March 6, 1967
PLACE OF DEATH: Budapest, Hungary
DISCIPLINE: fine arts
FIELD: Music; composer, educator, linguist
ASSESSMENT: A major figure in raising international awareness of Hungarian misuc.
LANGUAGE/S: Hungarian, German, English
EDUCATION: The Franz List Academy, the University of Hungary [PhD in Linguistics]
ACHIEVEMENTS: Musical compositions including ballad operas, orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, folk song arrangements, choral music for children, development of a music education system for children
MAJOR-WORK/S: two symphonies, Dances of Galanta, Peacock Variations, Summer Evening, Theatre Overture and Variations on a Hungarian Folksong for orchestra, viola concerto, Dances of Marosszeck, Meditation on a Theme of Debussy, Seven piano pieces and variations for piano, large number of folk song arrangements, Psalmus Hungaricus, Jesus and The Merchants, and Te Deum, Laudes Organi and Pange lingua for choir and organ, Missa Brevis, Spartacus [ballet], Czinka Panna, Hary Janos, and the Transylvanian Spinning Room [all operas].
PARENTS: ?
SPOUSE: Unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
CHILDREN: Unknown
LIFE AND TIMES/DETAILS:
Kodaly’s his father was a state railroad employee who played the violin and encouraged Zoltan in music, as did his mother who played the piano. His early education and upbringing was in rural Galanta.
His first orchestral work was performed by his high school orchestra in 1900. After high school, he attended the University of Budapest as well as the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. His teacher was Hans Koessler, who also taught <fellow student was> Bartok* and <fellow student was> Dohnanyi*.
After graduation, he began his first efforts to collect Hungarian folk songs, beginning in his native Galanta, and continuing through 1914. He taught music theory at the Liszt Academy and later became a professor there in 1911. About this same time, he became involved in the music curriculum of Hungarian schools, while still producing a ready flow of musical compositions…and remained involved in music education for the next 30 years.
In 1923, on the 50th anniversary of the unification of Buda and Pest as the Hungarian capital, he composed Psalmus Hungarius, which was soon performed by conductors <such as> Toscanini* throughout Europe and America.
From 1923 to 1933, he composed two operas, Hary Janos and The Spinning Room, as well as the orchestral Dances of Galanta, all strongly founded on folk music.
In 1933, he and Bartok were asked by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to publish all available Hungarian folk music material that they had collected. It took until 1951 to get the first volume printed.
During this time, he also produced numerous choral works for children as part of his music education system; he produced a third opera, Czinka Panna, in 1948, and in 1961,he composed a symphony (dedicated to Toscanini) which had its premiere in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Besides being a composer, he Kodaly was also an educator and inspired a new approach to teaching music in Hungary, which soon spread to “Zoltan Kodaly Societies” throughout Europe and America. These are are active to this day.
Kodaly felt music instruction should be vocally based, and he created games to teach students to sing in tune, for improvision, and to sight-read music.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
www.kodaly.org, www.classicalarchives.com, www.karadar.net, The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, www.naxos.com, http://kodalyireland.tripod.com, The Oxford Dictionary of Music