Kodály, Zoltán

Kodály, Zoltán (zôl`tän kô`dī), 1882–1967, Hungarian composer and collector of folk music. In 1906 he began to teach at the Budapest Hochschule, of which he became assistant director in 1919. He lectured (1930–33) at the Univ. of Budapest. Kodály did much to raise the standards of music education in Hungary. With Bartók he collected thousands of Hungarian folk songs and dances, and the influence of this interest is strong in his compositions, which have a romantic style. Among his best-known works are the opera Háry János (1926, orchestral suite 1927), the Psalmus Hungaricus (1923) and Missa Brevis (1945) for chorus and orchestra, and orchestral dances.

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Kodály, Zoltán

(born Dec. 16, 1882, Kecskemét, Hung.—died March 6, 1967, Budapest) Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, and music educator. He played various instruments as a child and studied simultaneously at the university and the Budapest Academy of Music, earning diplomas in composition and teaching and a doctorate in Hungarian folk song. With Béla Bartók, a lifelong friend, he compiled the important Hungarian Folk Songs (1906), and he continued to make field recordings until World War I made it impossible. He came to international attention with his Psalmus hungaricus (1923) and the opera Háry János (1926). Kodály created an individual style that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. He devoted much of his energy to developing a school music curriculum that would develop children's musicality, and the “Kodály method” remains in wide use.