Zoltán Kodály

"Kodaly" redirects here. For other uses, see Kodaly (disambiguation).

The native form of this personal name is Kodály Zoltán. This article uses the Western name order.

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"Zoltán Kodály born 125 years ago". Stamp of Hungary, 2007.

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Zoltán Kodály monument in Pécs

Zoltán Kodály (Hungarian: Kodály Zoltán, [ˈkodaːj ˈzoltaːn]; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.

Life

Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child.

In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote the thesis on Hungarian folk song ("Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong"). Around this time Kodály met fellow composer Béla Bartók, whom he took under his wing and introduced to some of the methods involved in folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friends and champions of each other's music.

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Bust in Balatonlelle, Hungary

All these works show a great originality of form and content, a very interesting blend of highly sophisticated mastery in the Western-European style of music, including classical, late-romantic, impressionistic and modernist tradition and at the other hand profound knowledge and respect for the folk music in Hungary and the Hungarian-inhabited areas of Slovakia and Romania. Partly because of the Great War and subsequent major geopolitical changes in the region, partly because of a naturally rather diffident temperament in youth, Kodály had no major public success until 1923. This was the year when one of his best-known pieces, Psalmus Hungaricus, was given its first performance at a concert to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest (Bartók's Dance Suite premiered on the same occasion.)

Kodály's first wife was Emma Gruber (née Schlesinger, later Sándor), the dedicatee of Ernő Dohnányi's Waltz for piano four-hands, Op. 3, and Variations and Fugue on a theme by E.G., Op. 4 (1897). In November 1958, after 48 years of the most harmonious marriage Kodály's first wife Emma died. In December 1959, Kodály married Sarolta Péczely, his 19-year-old student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with whom he lived happily until his death in 1967 at the age of 84.

In 1966, Kodály toured the United States and gave a special lecture at Stanford University, where some of his music was performed in his presence.

Kodály Method of Musical Education

Throughout his adult life, Kodály was very interested in the problems of many types of music education, and he wrote a large amount of material on teaching methods as well as composing plenty of music intended for children's use. Beginning in 1935, along with his colleague Jenö Ádám (14 years his junior), he embarked on a long-term project to reform music teaching in Hungary's lower and middle schools. His work resulted in the publication of several highly influential books.

The Hungarian music education program that developed in the 1940s became the basis for what is called the "Kodály Method". While Kodály himself did not write a comprehensive method, he did establish a set of principles to follow in music education, and these principles were widely taken up by pedagogues (above all in Hungary, but also in many other countries) after World War II. See also: Kodály Hand Signs.

Commemorative plaque in Andrássy Avenue, Budapest

In Film

In the motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a visual learning aid distributed to members of a conference of UFOlogists was named the " Kodaly Method" and referenced musical notes as hand signals.

Selected works

Operas

• Háry János, Op. 15 (1926)
• Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room) (1924–1932)

Orchestral

• Summer Evening (1906, revised 1929)
• Háry János Suite (1926)
• Dances of Marosszék (1930)
• Dances of Galánta (1933)
• Variations on a Hungarian folk song "Fölszállott a páva" ("The Peacock"; 1939)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1939–1940)
• Symphony (1930s–1961)

Chamber/instrumental

• Adagio for violin (or viola, or cello) and piano (1905)
• Intermezzo for string trio (1905)
• String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 2 (1908–1909)
• Cello Sonata, Op. 4 (1909–1910)
• Duo for violin and cello, Op. 7 (1914)
• Sonata for solo cello, Op. 8 (1915)
• String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1916–1918)
• Szerenád (Serenade) for 2 violins and viola, Op. 12 (1919–1920)
• Pange lingua, Praeludium for organ (1931)
• Organoeida ad missam lectam (Csendes mise) (1944)
• Epigrammak (1954)

Choral

• Este (1904)
• Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13 (1923)
• Matrai kepek (1931)
• Jézus és a kufárok (1934)
• Ének Szent István Királyhoz (1938)
• Te Deum (1939)
• Missa Brevis for soloists, chorus and organ (1942, 1948)
• Laudes organi for chorus and organ (1966)
• Adventi ének (Veni, Veni Emmanuel) for mixed choir a cappella

See also

• Solfege

Further reading

• Breuer, János (1990) A Guide to Kodály. Budapest: Corvina Books
• Eosze, László (and Micheál Houlahan and Philip Tacka), "Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Volume 13. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2002. pp. 716–26
• Houlahan, Mícheál and Philip Tacka. Zoltán Kodály: A Guide to Research. (New York: Rutledge Publishing), 1998
• Houlahan, Mícheál and Philip Tacka. Kodály Today: A Cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education Inspired by the Kodály Concept. (New York: Oxford University Press), 2008
• Folk Music of Hungary, New York: Praeger, 1971
• Lendvai, Erno (1983) The Workshop of Bartók and Kodály. Budapest: Editio Musica Budapest

External links

• The American Folk Song Collection - The Kodály Center at Holy Names University
• The Kodály Institute, which educates musicians according to Kodály's practice
• International Kodály Society
• The Organization of American Kodály Educators
• The Kodály Music Education Institute of Australia
• The British Kodály Academy (Registered Charity)
• Zoltán Kodály at Find a Grave