Zoltán Kodály

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the town in India, see Kodaly, Thrissur.
The native form of this personal name is Kodály Zoltán. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Zoltán Kodály
Kodály Method
Signature

Zoltán Kodály (

music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method
of music education.

Life

Born in Kecskemét, Hungary, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child. In 1900, he entered the Department of Languages at the University of Budapest and at the same time Hans von Kössler's composition class at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. After completing his studies, he studied in Paris with Charles Widor for a year.[3]

In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on

phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote a thesis on Hungarian folk song, "Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong". At around this time Kodály met fellow composer and compatriot 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.

Statue of Kodály at Szent István square in Pécs, Hungary
Duo for violin and cello (Op. 7, 1914)
Performed by members of the U.S. Army Band Strings
Problems playing this file? See media help.

All these works[

Pest (Bartók's Dance Suite
premiered on the same occasion.)

Kodály's first wife was

Ernő Dohnányi's Waltz for piano with four hands, Op. 3, and Variations and Fugue on a theme by E.G., Op. 4 (1897).[4]
Emma died in November 1958, after 48 years of marriage.

Thirteen months later, in December 1959, Kodály married Sarolta Péczely [hu], 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 Budapest.[5]

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.[6]

Kodály methodology of musical education

Main article: Kodály method

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 Jenő 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 goals of the Kodály method can summarized into the following points:[7]

  • Music is for everyone.
  • Music teaching should be sequential and begin with the child in mind.
  • Children should be taught music from an early age.
  • The sequence should be logical and follow the same process children learn language.
  • Music classes should be enjoyable and engaging.
  • Singing is the first and most valuable tool for learning musical concepts.
  • Teachers should pull from quality folk song materials in the "mother tongue" of the students.

The Hungarian music education program that developed in the 1940s became the basis for the

Kodály hand signs
.

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 Kodály Method and referenced musical notes as hand signals.

Legacy and memorials

Commemorative plaque in Andrássy Avenue, Budapest

The city of

Cathedral and it faces a former children's playground, reflecting the central importance to Kodály of musical education for children. He is depicted as an aged man, walking among horse-chestnut trees.[8]

At one point during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Workers Councils proposed to form a government with Kodály as president "because of his great national and international reputation."[9]

Selected works

See also: Category:Compositions by Zoltán Kodály
Stage works
Orchestral
  • Idyll Summer Evening (1906, revised 1929)
  • Háry János Suite (1926)
  • Dances of Marosszék (1929; orchestration of the 1927 piano set)
  • Theatre Overture (1931) (originally intended for Háry János)
  • Dances of Galánta (1933)
  • Variations on a Hungarian folk song (Fölszállott a páva, or The Peacock Roared, 1939)
  • Concerto for Orchestra (1940)
  • Symphony in memoriam Toscanini (1961)
Chamber or instrumental
  • Adagio for Violin (or Viola or Cello) and Piano (1905)
  • Intermezzo for String Trio (1905)
  • Seven Pieces for Piano, Op. 11 (1918)
  • String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 2 (1909)
  • Cello Sonata, Op. 4 (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 (1920)
  • Marosszéki táncok (Dances of Marosszék, piano, 1927)
  • Organ Prelude Pange lingua (1931)
  • Organoeida ad missam lectam (Csendes mise, organ, 1944)
  • Epigrammak (1954)
Choral
  • Este (Evening) (1904)
  • Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13 (1923)
  • Mátrai képek (Mátra Pictures) for choir a cappella (1931)
  • Jézus és a kufárok (Jesus and the Traders) for choir a cap (1934)
  • Ének Szent István királyhoz (Hymn to St Stephen) (1938)
  • Te Deum for Buda Castle (1936)
  • Te Deum of Sándor Sík for choir a cappella (1961)
  • Missa brevis for choir and Organ (1942, orchestrated 1948)
  • Laudes organi for choir and Organ (1966)
  • Adventi ének (Veni, veni, Emmanuel) for choir a cappella
Organ
  • Introitus - Kyrie
  • Gloria
  • Credo
  • Sanctus
  • Benedictus
  • Agnus Dei
  • Ite missa est
  • 114. Genfi zsoltár
  • Pangue lingua
  • Laudes Organi

See also

  • Solfège, a music education method used to teach pitch and sight singing

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-521-15255-6
    .
  3. ^ "Zoltán Kodály (Composer, Arranger)". Retrieved July 22, 2022.
  4. ISBN 978-0253109286
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6
    .
  6. ^ "Kodály Center for Music Education :: The Kodály Philosophy".
  7. ^ "The Kodály Concept – Organization of American Kodaly Educators". www.oake.org. Retrieved 2023-02-07.
  8. ^ "Kodály Statue – Pécs". www.iranypecs.hu. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  9. ISBN 0935590056
    .

Further reading

  • Breuer, János (1990) A Guide to Kodály. Budapest: Corvina Books
  • Dalos, Anna (2020) Zoltan Kodaly’s World of Music' Oakland: University of California Press.'
  • Eösze, László, 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, M & Philip Tacka Kodály Today: A Cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 2015), 644p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the Kindergarten: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 576p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the First Grade Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 264p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the Second Grade Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 296p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the Third Grade Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 328p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the Fourth Grade Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 344p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka Kodály in the Fifth Grade Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 376p.
  • Houlahan, M & Philip Tacka From Sound to Symbol: Fundamentals of Music. Second edition including an audio CD and interactive Skill Development DVD and web-based supplementary materials for eleven chapters. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 2011), 489p.
  • Folk Music of Hungary, New York: Praeger, 1971
  • Lendvai, Ernő (1983) The Workshop of Bartók and Kodály. Budapest: Editio Musica Budapest

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zoltán Kodály.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zoltán_Kodály&oldid=1218349495"