Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, music teacher, and scholar who studied music from different cultures. He was also a linguist and philosopher. He is famous around the world for creating the Kodály method of teaching music. Kodály was born on December 16, 1882, and he passed away on March 6, 1967. His name is pronounced "koh-dye" in the United Kingdom and "koh-dye" in the United States. In Hungary, his name is said as "koh-dahy" and "zoltan."

Life

Zoltán Kodály was born in Kecskemét, Hungary, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a child, he learned to play the violin. In 1900, he began studying languages at the University of Budapest and also took composition lessons from Hans von Kössler at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. After finishing his studies, he spent a year in Paris learning from Charles-Marie Widor.

In 1905, Kodály traveled to remote villages to record traditional Hungarian folk songs using phonograph cylinders. In 1906, he wrote a thesis titled "Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong." Around this time, he met Béla Bartók, another Hungarian composer. Kodály helped Bartók learn how to collect folk songs, and the two became lifelong friends and supported each other’s musical work.

In 1919, Kodály and Bartók were both appointed to the Music Directory by the People’s Commissariat for Education and Culture in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.

Kodály’s compositions combined advanced techniques from Western European musical traditions, such as classical, late-romantic, impressionistic, and modernist styles, with deep respect for Hungarian folk music. This included music from areas in modern-day Slovakia and Romania that were part of Hungary at the time. Due to World War I and changes in Europe’s political borders, as well as his quiet personality, Kodály did not gain widespread recognition until 1923. That year, his famous work Psalmus Hungaricus was performed at a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest. Bartók’s Dance Suite was also performed at the same event.

Kodály’s first wife was Emma Gruber (née Schlesinger, later Sándor). She was the person for whom Ernő Dohnányi wrote two piano pieces. Emma died in November 1958, after 48 years of marriage.

Thirteen months later, in December 1959, Kodály married Sarolta Péczely, his 19-year-old student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. They remained married until his death in 1967 at the age of 84 in Budapest.

In 1966, Kodály visited the United States and gave a lecture at Stanford University. Some of his music was performed during his visit.

Kodály Philosophy of Music Education

Kodály was very interested in music education throughout his adult life. He wrote many materials about teaching methods and composed music for children. In 1935, he worked with his colleague Jenő Ádám, who was 14 years younger, to improve music teaching in Hungary's lower and middle schools. Their work led to the creation of several important books.

The Kodály Philosophy of Music Education includes these ideas:
• Music belongs to everyone.
• Teaching music should follow a clear order and start with the needs of children.
• Children should learn music at an early age.
• Lessons should be logical and follow the same steps as learning language.
• Music classes should be fun and interesting.
• Singing is the most important way to teach musical ideas.
• Teachers should use high-quality folk songs from the students' native language.

A music education program in Hungary during the 1940s became the foundation for the Kodály philosophy. Although Kodály did not write a complete method, he created principles that music teachers followed, especially in Hungary and other countries after World War II. Some of his methods, such as the Kodály hand signs for solfege, were originally developed by John Curwen but became widely used by Kodály teachers worldwide.

In the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a visual learning tool given to people who study UFOs was named the Kodály Philosophy. It showed musical notes as hand signals.

Legacy and memorials

In 1976, the city of Pécs asked a sculptor named Imre Varga to create a large bronze statue of Kodály. The statue stands in Szent István square, with its back facing the Cathedral and its front pointing toward a place that was once a children's playground. This shows how important Kodály believed music education was for children. The statue shows Kodály as an older man walking among horse-chestnut trees.

In 2016, another large bronze statue of Kodály was placed in the northern part of Buda Castle park. This statue, also made by Imre Varga, shows Kodály sitting. The exact location is 47.5052182N, 19.0319091E.

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, groups of workers wanted to create a government with Kodály as president. They chose him because he was well-known both in Hungary and around the world.

Selected works

• Háry János, Opus 15 (1926)
• Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room) (1924–1932)

• Idyll Summer Evening (1906, revised 1929)
• Háry János Suite (1926)
• Dances of Marosszék (1929; arranged from a 1927 piano version)
• Theatre Overture (1931) (originally planned for Háry János)
• Dances of Galánta (1933)
• Variations on a Hungarian folk song (Fölszállott a páva, or The Peacock Roared, 1939)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1940)
• Symphony in Memory of Toscanini (1961)

• Adagio for Violin (or Viola or Cello) and Piano (1905)
• Intermezzo for String Trio (1905)
• Seven Pieces for Piano, Opus 11 (1918)
• String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Opus 2 (1909)
• Cello Sonata, Opus 4 (1910)
• Duo for Violin and Cello, Opus 7 (1914)
• Sonata for Solo Cello, Opus 8 (1915)
• Capriccio for Solo Cello (1915)
• String Quartet No. 2, Opus 10 (1916–1918)
• Szerenád (Serenade) for 2 Violins and Viola, Opus 12 (1920)
• Marosszéki táncok (Dances of Marosszék, piano, 1927)
• Organ Prelude Pange lingua (1931)
• Organoeida ad missam lectam (Csendes mise, organ, 1944; revised around 1965): Introitus, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus, and Ite, missa est
• Epigrammak (1954)

• Este (Evening) (1904)
• Psalmus Hungaricus, Opus 13 (1923)
• Mátrai képek (Mátra Pictures) for choir a cappella (1931)
• Jézus és a kufárok (Jesus and the Traders) for choir a cappella (1934)
• Ének Szent István királyhoz (Hymn to St Stephen) (1938)
• Te Deum for Buda Castle (1936)
• Te Deum of Sándor Sík for choir a cappella (1961)
• Missa brevis for choir and Organ (1942; orchestrated 1948)
• Laudes organi for choir and Organ (1966)
• Adventi ének (Veni, veni, Emmanuel) for choir a cappella
• 114. Genfi zsoltár for choir and organ