Zoltan Kodaly was born in Hungary in the year 1882.He became a prominent figure in the in the musical world of Hungary and had immense influence in musical education and composition. He was a music composer, educator, linguist, philosopher, and ethnomusicologist. He held an interest in music at a very young age learning to play the violin at a tender age and also sang in a cathedral choir and wrote music despite having little formal musical education by then. As a young child, his initial interest was literature studies despite the parents being amateur musicians, but his interest changed when his family moved from Galanta to Nagyszombat, and he took lessons in playing instruments and choir singing. He is described as a modernist as he later joined the University of Budapest in 1900 to study modern languages (Elizabeth 20). Further to this, he also began to study music at the Franz Liszt Academy of music in Budapest. Kodaly highly invested in education attaining a Ph.D. in 1906 after which he went to Paris to study. In France, he was much influenced by the music of Claude Debussy and Brahms, and when he moved back to Budapest, he became a professor of the Academy of music.
Zoltan had a vast interest in music education and wrote a significant amount of material on music education methods. He also composed music for children and in 1935, along with Jeno Adam they embarked on a project to reform music teaching in the lower and middle schools and from his work, he was able to produce several highly influential books that profoundly impacted musical education in and out of his home country. Kodaly established a set of principles to follow in musical education that culminated to what is referred to as “Kodaly method” in the 1940’s.
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His approach to teaching music was modern as his method starts with a person’s voice as the original instrument, which, with teaching would apply to any instrument whereas the traditional approach focused on teaching a specific skill set for a particular instrument. His compositions and instructions kept pace with the modernism of the 20th century and were active in reforming style of music teaching in most Hungarian schools. His approach was successful even outside Hungary, and it was practiced in schools in the United States and England.
Zoltan was in Hungary during the world war 2, and after his retirement in 1942, he toured several countries in Europe including England, Soviet Union, and the United States. From his works he received many awards and honors for his continued dedication towards improving music Education and through the continuous writing of materials for children and adults. He revolutionalized traditional music by bringing in new ways to study it and to teach it and greatly formalized Hungarian folk music and culture.
Despite all his musical innovations, teachings and interactions internationally his mode of artistic development was always focused on his native country. There was a definite emphasis on vocal music, especially choral music and by his retirement, he was an accomplished composer of music for choirs. Kodaly was born from a peasant, and thus he was well accustomed to peasant melodies and Hungarian folk culture since his childhood.
He had a significant aspect of a traditional composer; this is because of his ability to fuse Hungarian folk music with European music tradition. Kodaly and his counterpart Bela Bartok emphasized on European musical culture, and they paid close attention to native Hungarian folk music traditions. However, he is less exposed to the west than Bartok as they perceived him as a more conservative composer compared to Bartok. Kodaly development of music was primarily focused on his native country traditions whereas Bartok embraced international influences of modernism. In his expeditions, Kodaly collected and transcribed traditional folk music. In some of his compositions, he incorporated actual folk melodies that he had gathered in 1921 and 1937. Kodaly also published significant books on Hungarian folk music and received worldwide recognition in the world of ethnomusicology.
Most of his work display originality in its content where he incorporated knowledge and respect for Hungarian folk music and traditions. In most of his teachings, he implemented folk songs, and his sort of sound in his music was derived from the folk music of Hungary. One of his significant works was Hary Janos 1932, which was a folk-based opera ( Koska &Alexander 25 ). In his work, he never abandoned the collection of Hungarian folk music and culture and assimilated it to his compositions and teachings. Folk song was the easily accessible song to people and children, and therefore, he stated that musical education should start from here. He actively reformed how music was being taught in Hungarian schools by introducing sight singing for teaching children, based on folk songs.
Kodaly’s work was not immediately accepted as the Hungarian upper-class type of music was Viennese classical music, and they spoke German while the peasants spoke Hungarian and they had a tradition of folk music. Majority of the concert audiences were the upper class, but this did not deter Kodaly from turning his attention from native Hungarian folk music traditions. Kodaly accomplished the task of establishing a new style of music, which incorporated Hungarian culture away from the German music in Hungary.
Kodaly is also viewed as a traditionalist from his list of achievements. He is recognized as a national hero in his native country Hungary, he became the president of Hungarian Arts Council, and he received the order of Hungarian people republic in 1962.Further to this, he served in other positions such as the presidency of international folk music council and honorary president of the global society for Music Education. After his death in 1967, he died as one of the most prominent figures in Hungarian Arts. Most of his compositions failed to keep up with the evolving modernism of the 20th century, but he remained active and beloved in Hungary as he stayed in his native country despite the communists taking over and hence dearly rewarded for his loyalty and patriotism.
In conclusion, Kodaly had a significant impact on the art of music, and he influenced music positively and still does up to present day. He is described as a modernist from his teaching methods and from the fact that he studied modern languages and studied music in the university. He actively influenced the development and refinement of music material and textbooks. He is portrayed as a traditionalist from his style of music, which relied heavily on the Hungarian folk music tradition and culture. He is more of a traditional composer rather than a modernist as he avoided to embrace international modernism influence in his music composition but mainly relied heavily on his native Hungarian culture. He went down as an accomplished achiever who vastly influenced music education in Hungary and at the same time preserving his nation’s traditions. He was able to compete with the German culture in his own country and further promoted Hungarian music and language representing a lot of originality allowing him to achieve several accreditations and be recognized locally and internationally, and up to date his works and materials are still a point of reference.
References
Grunin, Elizabeth A. A performance guide for the unaccompanied cello compositions by Mieczyslaw Weinberg . Diss. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2015.
Koska, Ivan. "Alexander Moyzes and His Piano Sonata in the Context of Slovak Music Between the Wars." (2015).
