Kodaly Galanta Dances

Description

Zoltan Kolaly (1882 - 1967)Dances of Galanta Dances of Marosszek Variations on a Hungarian Folksong (The Peacock)The development of national consciousness in the second half ofthe nineteenth century led to some curious misunderstandings, not the least of which wereLiszt's use of Hungarian gypsy music in his popular Hungarian Rhapsodies, music that wasessentially composed for the entertainment of audiences, rather than genuine folk-song orfolk-dance. It was left to Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kolaly to put matters to rights, withtheir better informed investigations of the true folk-music of the different regions ofHungary and neighbouring countries.Zoltan Kolaly was born in 1882 at Kecskemet, fifty milessouth-east of Budapest, where his father, an employee of the railways, was booking-clerk.The following year the family moved to Szob, where Kolaly's father became station-master,and in 1885 there was a further transfer, this time to Galanta, on the main line fromBudapest to Bratislava, the capital of modern Slovakia. Galanta became part of the newrepublic of Czechoslovakia in 1920, but under Hitler became once more part of Hungary. Thecomposer spent seven years in Galanta, a period later reflected in the Dances of Galanta. This was followed by a furthereight years in the largely Slovak town of Nagyszombat (Trnava), where his father had beentransferred. In 1900 he entered the Pazmany University in Budapest to study German andHungarian, at the same time taking lessons at the Academy of Music, where his compositionteacher was the German Hans Koessler, a cousin of Max Reger, a musician for whom Hungariantraditional folk-song had no place. His doctoral thesis in 1906 was devoted to a study ofHungarian folksong, in the collection and investigation of which he had already busiedhimself, together with Bartok.After a brief period of study in Berlin, Kolaly returned toHungary to join the staff of the Academy, where in 1908 he took over the first-yearcomposition class. In the following years he continued his activities as a composer and asa collector of folk-song, finding in the second activity a necessary foundation for artmusic that was genuinely Hungarian rather than in the accepted German mould. He becamedeputy director of the Academy, which was granted the status of a university in theshort-lived Hungarian Republic that was established in 1919, but was barred for a timefrom teaching after the fall of the Republic four months later and the accession to powerof Admiral Horthy.Increasing international attention grew in the next years, withpublication of Kolaly's music abroad and in particular with the first performance outsideHungary of Psalmus Hungaricus in 1926 and the later performance abroad of excerpts fromHary Janos. When he was able to resume his duties as a teacher, he was able to continueto exercise a strong influence on younger composers and a still greater influence over thewhole process of music education in Hungary, with methods that have continued