- compositions
- ethnomusicology
- concept of music education
- Kodály and the Academy of Music
- important posts, decorations - recognition
Zoltán Kodály (16th December 1882 Kecskemét – 6th March 1967 Budapest) was one of the most outstanding personalities of 20th century Hungarian culture: composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue and linguist. His internationally acknowledged concept of music education is the basis for general music teaching in Hungary and also plays an important role in the training of professional musicians. Zoltán Kodály played a prominent role in Hungarian public life, holding several public posts and being a member or head of numerous boards and committees. He was also acquainted with many influential public figures (musicians, artists, scholars and politicians).
Zoltán Kodály\'s earliest compositions date from the 1890s his last being composed in 1966. His style was profoundly influenced by Hungarian folk music. He incorporated folk melodies into many of his works, thus winning even theatres and concert halls for Hungarian folk music. During his long and productive life he composed numerous works in a wide variety of genres, including pedagogical works. To promote “musical literacy”, Kodály wrote many volumes of reading and singing exercises for use from elementary to professional level. He was also very eager to promote and support reforms in the Hungarian choral movement and choral repertoire from the 1920s onwards. His choral works were published in three volumes (one for children’s and female choir, one for male choir and one for mixed choir). He also composed for solo voice, writing many art songs and arranging numerous folksongs. Adaptation of folk music is evident even in his stage works (Háry János, The Spinning Room) and large-scale orchestral works (i.e. Dances of Galánta, Dances of Marosszék, The Peacock Variations). In the field of religious music, Kodály composed masses and oratorical works (i.e. Psalmus Hungaricus, Te Deum of Buda Castle, Missa Brevis) besides several minor pieces. He composed chamber music as well as solo instrumental pieces (Sonata for solo cello, Intermezzo).
Zoltán Kodály turned his attention toward Hungarian folk music in 1905 when, along with Béla Bartók, he began collecting folk music both for artistic and academic purposes. He wrote his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Stanzaic Structure of Hungarian Folksong, in 1906. Kodály first had the idea to compile a complete and systematized collection of Hungarian folk music in 1913, under the title The New Universal Collection of Folksongs but he did not succeed in securing funding for the project then. In 1937 he published his fundamental ethnographical study, Hungarian Folk Music. The concise folk music collection he has planned before eventually came out under the title Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae (Hungarian Folk Music). The first volume, a collection of children game songs (edited by György Kerényi), was published in 1951. Besides being the originator of the idea and directing the editorial work, Kodály wrote the preface to this and further volumes up to 1967. In the late 1940s Kodály organized a research group, which in 1953 officially became the Folk Music Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This institution has since been collecting, transcribing, categorizing and systematizing folk music of the people of Hungary and neighbouring countries. Kodály succeeded in his effort to preserve the folk music of Hungary, making it an integral part of the music of both rural and urban areas.
Kodály inspired revolutionary changes in the teaching of music in Hungary. He, together with some of his former disciples, established new principles of music education, which have come to be known as the \"Kodály Method\", or more correctly, the “Kodály Concept”.
There are some basic principles inherent in the Kodály Concept.
- Musical training should be an integral part of the general curriculum. The aim of the Kodály Concept is not to produce a nation of professional musicians. It is to make a nation appreciate and understand music, to educate future audiences, and to bring up a generation of concert goers and music lovers. Music should not only be accessible to the elite.
- Music instruction should be vocally-based: the human voice is an innate instrument, accessible to all (unlike musical instruments). In support of this, Kodály strongly encouraged participation in choral singing.
- Material used for teaching should be taken from (the given nation’s) folk music and compositions influenced by that folk music heritage. Through the use of high quality material in this “musical mother tongue”, children learn new musical elements (while also learning about their nation’s culture and traditions). Besides folk music, of course classical music is an integral part of the teaching material.
- Musical literacy – it was Kodály’s belief that the ability to read and write music is just as important as general literacy. To establish this skill, he suggested adopting relative solmization (or “moveable doh”). The methodological details and sequence of the concept’s practical application were devised and developed by his co-workers.
Kodály did not only work on the theoretical aspect of his concept of music education. He composed reading and singing exercises needed for practising from primary to professional levels. He also wrote numerous articles and essays on his educational concept and gave many speeches at international conferences. Together with his disciples he edited several schoolbooks to be used in different types of schools for different age groups.
Although the application of Kodály’s ideas on music education in Hungary is rooted in Hungarian folk music, his concept is easily adaptable to the folk music of any other nation.
Kodály promoted the teaching of general musicianship to both instrumental and solfege students. He also established the tradition of holding musicianship competitions in Hungary.
Kodály and the Academy of Music
Although Kodály had been a self-taught musician, he was readily accepted to the Academy of Music in 1900 where he studied composition with Hans Koessler. Parallel to his musical studies, he also began studying Hungarian and German language and literature at Budapest University, subsequently earning a doctoral degree from the institution (The Stanzaic Structure of Hungarian Folk Song, 1906). Kodály voluntarily repeated his final year at the Academy in 1905, believing he needed more professional training. After a short study tour to Berlin and Paris he was immediately employed by the Academy of Music, as was his peer, Béla Bartók. From 1907 to 1940 he was appointed a professor at the Academy, teaching mainly Composition, as well as its subsidiary subjects (Harmony, Counterpoint, Form, Orchestration and Score Reading) to Composition and other interested Conducting or instrumental students. He also lectured in Folk Music from the 1940s till the mid 50s. When the Department of Musicology was established in 1951, Kodály became the leading professor of the special course for would-be ethnomusicologists for a short time. “To a certain extent Kodály’s teaching was not teaching, but something of a far higher order… he always extracted the most of a pupil… he firmly guided the student along a planned and constructively developed path without the student ever being aware of it…” – Mátyás Seiber, pupil of Kodály.
In addition to his teaching posts, Kodály also occupied other positions of importance. In 1919 he became Deputy Director of the Academy for a short period, and in 1945 became Chairman of its Board of Directors.
Kodály gave many remarkable speeches at the opening and closing ceremonies of the school year at the Academy, as well as on numerous other occasions such as conferences, etc. His speeches, writings and statements have been collected and published in three volumes under the title In Retrospect.
1943 member of the Academy of Sciences (Hungary), later president from 1947 to 1949
1946 president of the Hungarian Art Council (until it was dissolved in 1950)
1961 president of the International Folk Music Council (IFMC)
1964 honorary president of the International Society of Music Education (ISME)
1965 recipient of the Herder prize (Vienna)
• member of several committees and boards in Hungary
• recipient of various government decorations
• honorary memberships and doctorates of numerous universities and conservatoires in several countries (i.e. Budapest, Oxford, Toronto, Belgium, Moscow, Berlin, Rome)
