Hall of Composers
Zoltan Kodály (1882-1967)
Zoltan Kodály was born Dec. 16, 1882, in a small central Hungarian town. It was in these small villages that he developed a love for his culture’s folk traditions and the Hungarian countryside. His father was an amateur musician and encouraged his son’s interest in music, particularly composition. Kodály went on to study at Hungary’s prestigious Franz List Academy and the University of Hungary, where he earned degrees in Hungarian, German, and a doctorate in linguistics.
Hungary had strong economic ties with Austria during the early 1900s and a divisive political climate. Educated and upper class Hungarians listened to classical Viennese music and spoke German, while the peasant population enjoyed its own thriving folk music tradition and spoke Hungarian. As a composer, Kodály worked hard to close the gap. In 1905 he and his colleague Béla Bartók began the first of several expeditions to collect traditional Hungarian folk music. Undeterred by detractors who thought the folk music too unrefined, Kodály continued to collect, transcribe, and incorporate folk music into his own compositions. In 1921 and 1937, Kodály and Bartók published two significant books on Hungarian folk music that garnered them worldwide recognition in the field of ethnomusicology.
Kodály became president of both the International Folk Music Council and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and honorary president of the International Society for Music Education. He also spent time talking to music educators and visiting schools, and helped develop music textbooks and other classroom materials. Many refer to his ideas as the "Kodály Method."
A prominent Hungarian composer, educator, ethnomusicologist, linguist, author and philosopher, Kodály joins Bartók and György Ligeti as the three major figures in Hungarian music. Kodály’s many compositions include ballad operas, orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, songs, folk song arrangements, and music for children.
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