Kodály 2012

December 17, 2012. Zoltan Kodály. One of the most prominent Hungarian composers of the 20^th century, fame he shares with Béla Bartók, Zoltan Kodály was born on Zoltan Kodaly December 16th of 1882 in a small town in central Hungary. As a child he studied the violin with his father, and at the age of 18 entered Budapest University to study languages and, simultaneously, the Hungarian Academy of Music, a composition class of Hans von Koessler. In 1907 he traveled to Paris to study with Charles Vidor at the Paris Conservatory. Starting 1905 he went on regular field trips collecting folksongs, often in the company of Béla Bartók, his lifetime friend. The folk tunes formed the basis of many, highly sophisticated, compositions of Kodály. From 1912 he taught at the Budapest Academy of Music (Antal Dorati was one of his pupils). Here are his Dances of Galánta, composed in 1933. Galánta is a small market town on the old railway line between Vienna and Budapest, where Zoltan spent seven years of his childhood. At that time, a famous gipsy band lived there. According to Kodály, the principle melodies of the Dance come from that music. Throughout his adult life, Kodály was very interested in the problems of music education. The Hungarian music education program that he developed in the 1940s became the basis for what is called the "Kodály Method". Kodály, who was born in the Dual Monarchy and had his most productive period during the Hungarian Republic, lived long enough to see the advent of the Hungarian Peoples Republic – but not the end of it: he died in 1967, at age 84.

Beethoven 2012

December 16, 2012. Beethoven! Today is the day to celebrate the 242^nd anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Beethoven in 1801 birthday. Here’s Sviatoslav Richter’s performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 1 in f minor, op. 2, no.1. The very first one of the eventual 32, the set that is still the pinnacle of piano literature, this sonata was written in 1795. The young Beethoven dedicated it to his teacher of several years, Franz Joseph Haydn. The portrait, by Carl Traugott Riedel, was made a bit later, in 1801.