Millenniumi esztendõ

“…Seeking the National Tone of Our Own”
János Bereczky

Kodály’s first two journeys of collecting folk songs
and the orchestral phantasy Nyári este (Summer Evening)

The turn of the 19th and 20th century was a period of seeking and waiting in Hungarian musical life. Everybody talked about the necessity of the creation or recreation of Hungarian music. “But where to take the stimulation and draw the inspiration from?” Kodály asked.
In August 1905 and in August 1906 he made his first two journeys in order to collect genuine folk songs in the villages of the area of his childhood. During these journeys he collected and notated 222 melodies.
He composed Nyári este (Summer Evening), his early orchestral work in August, September and October 1906. The composition is obviously strongly influenced by folk music, but there is a great query. The original version of 1906 exists only in the form of a manuscript which has been lost. The printed score of Nyári este is the revised edition of 1929 made by the composer of mature age. Is it possible that the recent and in fact very preliminary experience of Kodály’s first contact with folk song has influenced the musical expression of Nyári este as radically as the version of 1929 proves?
The author has found a copy of the original manuscript in the archive of the National Library of Hungary. So, for the first time, it is possible to study the problem which has occupied researchers’ minds throughout the past century: to what extent folk music has influenced the original music of Nyári este and to what extent are the influences revisions to the published score?
The author compares the themes and motives of Nyári este’s original version to the collection of 222 folk songs of the first two journeys. Many melodic details prove indisputably how even in 1906 Kodály could make use of musical idioms and phrases of the relatively small material with which he recently became acquainted for the “creation or re-creation of Hungarian music”. Especially the frequent usage of the pentatonic passages is striking.
The long-desired new and authentic Hungarian tone was born in Nyári este at a stroke. Despite the genius of Kodály as a composer this new tone was influenced as much by the peasant music of Hungary, so it was really a “national tone of our own”.

Der Präsident – Dohnányi’s Philharmoniker und die zeitgenössische Musik
János Breuer

Das Orchester der Budapester Philharmonischen Gesellschaft – nach Wiener Muster aus Mitglieder des Opernorchesters gegründet – wählte, als Verein seine Chefdirigenten, mit dem Titel Präsident bekleidet, selbst. Februar 1919 erwarb den Posten Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960), der hervorragender Pianist, Komponist und Pädagoge, der sein Amt im Frühjahr 1944, nach der Deutschen Besatzung Ungarns freiwillig ablegte, und sein Orchester auflöste.
Dohnányi wird von der Nachwelt als Musiker konservativer Einstellung bewertet. Die Programmgestaltung der Philharmoniker beweist diese Bahauptung jedoch weitgehend nicht. Während der Dohnányi-Ära hielt das Orchester etwa 620 Konzerte, davon um 340 unter der Leitung des Präsidenten. Die Bilanz 302 Werke von 104 Zeitgenossen, insgesamt 509-mal aufgeführt. Authorenabende mit Respighi, Stravinsky (2mal), Ravel, Prokofjew, Gastspiel von Hindemith, ungarische Erstaufführung von Schoeberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Werke von Honegger, sogar Messiaen.
Besonders viel tat er Béla Bartók, mit sieben Uraufführungen, alle von Dohnányi dirigiert. Bartók’s Kompositionen standen am Programm von 71 Konzerte der Philharmoniker. Zu Lebzeiten des Komponisten gab es kein zweites Orchester der Welt mit einer derart hoher Aufführungszahl des Ungarischen Meisters.
Die Untersuchung der Daten besagt, daß Ernst von Dohnányi, Chefdirigent des rangältesten Orchester Ungarns wurde zu Unrecht als Konservativer abgestempelt.

The Musical Traditions of the Cappella Sistina Reflected in Liszt’s Church Music
Zsuzsanna Domokos

This study deals with the influence of Palestrina’s music on the repertory performed at the Cappella Sistina during the nineteenth century, and especially its relationship to individual Liszt compositions. Several of the letters Liszt wrote in the 1860s show how deeply he was impressed by performances at the Sistina most probably with the hope to become its director. According to Liszt’s plan the Missa choralis ought to have been performed in the Cappella or in St. Peter Basilica, and have borne a dedication to the Pope. The compositions performed in Liszt’s time at the Cappella were brief, more (rather than less) homophonic, more easily performed and more easily understood by listeners. Liszt’s Missa choralis and his motets must have been composed with these criteria in mind. The study analyses and makes comparisons between the compositions of the Cappella’s 19^th century composers and that of Liszt in respect to the most characteristic features of the Cappella’s compositional methods. The comparisons suggest that much of the church music Liszt wrote during the 1860s correspond in certain significant ways to the compositional ideals and practices of the Sistina’s composers, without remaining subject to their control.

A Letter by Wolfgang Ebner and Wendelin Hueber to László Esterházy
some Data for a Lesser Known Period of the Music of the Esterházys
Péter Király

His study presents a letter written on 22. October 1651 by the Vienna court organist, W. Ebner, and W. Hueber, organist at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, to the Hungarian aristocrat László Esterházy. In their short reply they promised Esterházy, who had summoned them, to appear at a given date, exactly as Esterházy requested. The author also outlines in the article the available data on László Esterházy’s musicians during the years 1645-1652, while he was head of the Esterházy-family.

Themes of Béla Bartók with Folkloristic Content
Bálint Sárosi

According to Bartók, the highest degree of the influence peasant music exerts on art music is: “When neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in [a composer’s] music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music.” Going along The Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and referring also to other “non folkloristic” works of his, I attempt to contribute with some glosses to a better understanding of Bartók’s quoted words.
Just the first theme of the Music… can be closely paralleled with the stanza structure of a Székely-Hungarian ballad. The main characteristics of both, Bartók’s subject and folk tune are: four short lines, narrow compass, free (actually parlando) rhythm, unison presentation. The only, but of course substantial difference between the two is that in opposition to the incomplete pentatony of the ballad, Bartók’s theme has a chromatic scale filling up totally the fifth range. The case of the first subject of the 2nd movement is similar. Its structure is the same as that of a “new style” Hungarian folk song. Its rhythm and even more its scale however have no precedents in folk music.
The rhythm of the main theme of the movement 3 has its root in the 19th century verbunkos music. Some of the further subjects of the Music… can be related to the so called old style fifth-shifting Hungarian tunes. Bagpipe tunes also served as model for several bartókian subjects. Bartók adapts as model to his themes not only folk tunes in the literal sense, but also such marginal occurencees of folklore as swineherd’s horn signals and even children’s rhymes.

Traditional and New Research Tools in Bartók Sketch Studies
László Somfai

With reference to a forthcoming longer essay (”»Written between the desk and the piano«: Dating Béla Bartók’ Sketches,” to be published in 21st-Century Perspectives on 20th-Century Sketches, edited by Patricia Hill, Cambridge University Press), this study gives a glimpse at the complex methods used I dating Béla Bartók’s undated either not genuine but pseudo-sketches (cf. Facsimile 1: two incipits taken from already existing drafts, dated 20 March 1908 and sent as a “musical letter” to Emma Gruber), or an originally undated sketch, the beginning of String Quartet No. 1, was later cut out from Bartók’s pocket sketchbook and, with the date fixing the birth of the idea, sent to Stefi Geyer as an appendix to his love letter (in January 1908).
The central example of the study is the six-page-long sketch complex of the First Sonata for Violin and Piano (drafted in October-December 1921), preserved on folios 24^v-27^r in the so-called Black Pocket-book (facsimile edition: Editio Musica Budapest, 1987). Since Bartók used the same fountain pen and for a longer time refilled it from the writing units and for unfolding the chronological layers of their notation. Here we focus on differentiating between thin vs. thick lines (produced by the still scratchy dry fountain pen’s nib vs. the normal writing), smaller and larger sizes of the musical symbols (probably caused by the lighting conditions), and the inclination of vertical lines. The physical investigation is then combined with the musical interpretation of the firstly written thematic ideas, taking into account even the potential influence of Bartók’s own music (e.g. that he was reading the proofs of his recent works at that time). Finally a close look at his travel itinerary follows, because Bartók only worked in a sketchbook when he was far from his fully isolated studio with the piano in Budapest. As a result, we suggest that the sketches for the First Sonata were written between 10 July and 6 Sept. 1920 during Bartók’s summer holidays in Kertmegpuszta, a year before the actual composition.

Benjamin Rajeczky (11 November 1901 – 1 July 1989) the Ethnomusicologist
Lujza Tari

Researches of Benjamin Rajeczky prominent personality of the Hungarian musicology cover Gregorian chant and folk music. The long list of his books and studies, the publications he edited and the reviews he wrote provide conclusive evidence of the wide range of his interests in both spheres.
The present study attempts to give a comprehensive picture of Rajeczky’s ethnomusicological activity on the occasion of 100th anniversary of his birth.
The author – who had the fortune to be almost like a member in the Rajeczky family since her childhood – in this framework describes the main phases of his activities namely such as his studies, the beginning of his career, folk music fieldworks, folk music transcriptions. On the basis of facts the main lines of the ethnomusicological life-work she presents the editor of folk musik recordings and source editions, the polymath of ethnomusicology, and research organizer of Hungarian and international studies. The study contains a full catalogue of ethnomusicological literature of this extremely versatile, morally impeccable Master, the Cistercian monk and musicologist.