Zoltan Kodaly (1882–1967)

Zoltán Kodály was born in Kecskemét, Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He learned to play the violin and piano as a child and sang in the cathedral choir in Nagyszombat (present-day Trnava, Slovakia), where he spent part of his youth. This was where he wrote his first compositions. In 1900, he entered the University of Budapest to study languages, and at the same time enrolled at the Academy of Music to study composition. He toured the country, visiting remote villages, to gather material for his 1906 doctoral dissertation on the structure of Hungarian folk song. At around this time, Kodály met Béla Bartók, to whom he introduced some of his methods for folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friends and champions of each other's music; together they published many editions of folk songs between 1906 and 1921. Kodály became a teacher of theory and composition at the Academy of Music in 1907, a post he held until 1941. His importance as an educator extended not only to composers but also to teachers; and through his many students, he contributed greatly to the spread of music education. The "Kodály Method" he developed became a standard of music teaching all around the world. Kodály's own individual composing style was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music (he spent some time in Paris), and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. His writings included Die ungarische Volksmusik (Folk Music of Hungary, 1956), as well as numerous articles for scholarly ethnographic and musical journals. The Selected Writings of Zoltán Kodály, edited by Ferenc Bónis and translated from the Hungarian by Lili Halápy and Fred Macnicol, was published in 1974.