Classical Music - Country Style
Zoltán Kodály, born in 1882, attended the Budapest Academy with his fellow Hungarian, Bela Bartók. In fact, Kodály accompanied his friend on some of the musical research trips and even earned his doctorate on this subject. Two of Kodály's best-known works are based on these folk tunes and dances. Dances of Galánta dates from 1934 and incorporates five gypsy dances, played without interruption, becoming ever faster until the final veritable tonal orgy. Háry János, a suite written in 1926, is his most famous work - the one that begins with a musical "sneeze" - a hint that the listener should perhaps not believe everything he is about to hear.
In 1923, the 50th anniversary of the merging of the cities of Buda and Pest was celebrated. A special feature of the celebration was a concert featuring works written especially for the festival, by the two most prominent Hungarian composers of the time - Bartók and Kodály. From the former came the Dance Suite in six movements played without interruption, rich with Magyar dance rhythms and folk melodies. Kodály's contribution was the Psalmus Hungaricus for tenor soloist, chorus and orchestra.
Jean Sibelius, Finland's most noted composer, composed their national anthem - Finlandia, which was considered to be so stirring, it was banned by the Nazis. A futile effort at best, and entirely unsuccessful. Many of Sibelius' works are based on folk songs or legends, including the final movement of his violin concerto in d minor, Op. 47, from 1903. From earlier that same year is Valse Triste, Op. 44, the royalties for which he willed to his nephew, making that gentleman very wealthy in the process. Valse Triste began life as one of several numbers written as incidental music for the play Kuolema.
Leos Janácek was born in Moldavia, a small Baltic country which has recently become itself again. Until the early 1990s, perhaps his best-known composition was the Glagolitic Mass or Slavonic Mass. This intriguing work not only uses folk-type music, but the text is a translation of the normal Latin liturgical text into the ancient Slavonic language which is still preserved as the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church. This language relates to the modern Czech language as does that of Chaucer to modern English. The Mass is in nine sections, of which the organ solo in part 7 is the most famous. (It is frequently excerpted in old
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