"With his work as a collector, a composer and a music teacher, Zoltán Kodály changed the spiritual face of our home," state secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture Gergely Arató said at the ceremony.
Kodály was born on December 16, 1882 in Kecskemét, south of Budapest. His father, who worked as a station master for the state railway company MÁV, took his family to Szob, north of Budapest in 1883, then to Galanta, in present-day Slovakia in 1884. Both Kodály's father and his Polish-born mother, Paulina Jalovetzky, were lovers of music. Kodály too found music early on, teaching himself to play the violin, cello and piano, and acquainting himself with the classical repertoire by reading scores. Kodály graduated from secondary school with the highest marks in 1900.
At university, Kodály studied Hungarian and German. He also matriculated at the Music Academy in the composition department. There he was awarded a diploma in 1904. In the following years, he started collecting folk music and formed a friendship with Béla Bartók. The two published Hungarian Folk Songs together in 1906. In the same year, Kodály premiered his first composition, Summer Evening, and married Emma Sándor.
When Kodály returned from his travels abroad, studying and collecting folk music, he was made a teacher at the Music Academy, where he taught composition. Together with Bartók, he made an effort to popularise modern music and collect folk music, despite public indifference and official opposition. In 1917-1919, Kodály wrote a series of pieces for Nyugat, Hungary's leading artistic journal at the time, outlining the significance of folk music based on Bartók's aesthetic foundations.
Around the time of the1918 Hungarian Revolution, Kodály was appointed deputy director of the Music Academy. When the old guard came back to power in 1919, Kodály was suspended from his position and was not allowed to teach for another seven years.
Kodály earned world-wide recognition with the composition of Psalmus Hungaricus in 1923 and Háry János in 1926. These were followed by Dances of Marosszék (1927-1930) Galanta Dances (1933), Te Deum (1936), Peacock Variations (1939) and the Concerto for Orchestra (1940).
Kodály also contributed much to the area of music education, writing exercises for chorus and sight-reading. He also continued to elevate the place of folk music, publishing his famous monograph Hungarian Folk Music in 1937.
Kodály was awarded a special prize by the government on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1942. A year later, he was made a member of the Hungarian Academy of Science. After WWII, in the last days of which Kodály premiered his Missa Brevis, he served as chairman of the academy.
The Library of Hungarian Folk Music was published in 1951. Kodály and Bartók had proposed the work in 1913, and Bartók oversaw its creation from 1934. After Bartók left for the United States, Kodály took over the task.
Kodály was awarded the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest award for artists, in 1948, 1952 and 1957.
Source: Múlt-kor / Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
