Kodály

The bulk of Kodály’s chamber music was written in the years 1905 to 1920. Both the beginning and the end of the period are marked by masterpieces, the ADAGIO (1905) and the SERENADE FOR TWO VIOLINS AND VIOLA (Op. 12, 1920)—two works which, though unmistakably by the same composer, nevertheless display the most profound differences.

The ADAGIO is in three-part form, having a coda that is developed out of the middle open episode. In its melodic line and the accompaniment of the opening theme, the influence of the romantic masters is apparent; but its melodic structure—AABA_v—already has something in common with the structure of folk song. In the middle episode the second statement of the theme, by sequence, comes as a surprise:

Both the modulation and the internal structure are typical Kodály. And there are a number of other features characteristic of his later style; for instance, the instrumental type of melody at the end of the episode; the close (composed, as it were, of overtones) on a dominant seventh, that changes enharmonically into a German sixth chord which is resolved; the sequential repetition of the closing motive, leading to the reprise; and the changes that occur in the reprise. Interesting, also, is the end of the work: the middle episode returns, again with a modulation, but after a few bars it breaks up into a large-scale coda, the tempo accelerating to a climax, when it breaks off and gradually disappears into oblivion. Consider the final bars:

It begins with a motive composed of whole tones, descending and growing gradually slower, in a manner that recalls Debussy. Beneath this theme is a dominant seventh chord (unfunctional in character), that changes enharmonically into German sixth, in a manner that was later to become typical of Kodály’s style. Then, at the end of the fourth bar, appears a turn of a fourth, typical of folk song, and the work closes with a variation on this figure, the melody of which is completely pentatonic, while its underlying harmony, recalling Liszt’s later style, consists of a series of descending major triads.

A significant stage in Kodály’s development is marked by the NINE PIECES FOR PIANO, dating from 1909, for here the influence of folk song is indubitable, its melodic figures and rhythmic formulae occurring, no longer by chance, but as the result of serious study. Indeed, although other influences still exert almost equal weight, it is clear that Kodály was here beginning to use certain elements of folk music experimentally for the fashioning of his unique musical language. While each of these beautifully written little works is inspired by a different idea, the exposition of which determines their form, they all display a new kind of piano technique and are characterized by the free use of rhythmic and harmonic ostinatos. The first of them, the Lento, with its atmosphere of suffering and resignation, consists of two four-line strophes, in two-part form. Its basic idea is a perfect fifth. This is the framework for the two-bar motive, from the variations on which the strophe is constructed; while the series of descending mixtures of fifths in the accompaniment forms its modulatory basis.

The brilliantly written third piece, after a slow, quiet start, gradually accelerates to a passionate climax, and then once again subsides. The modal melody is heard beneath a sextolet ostinato figure in the accompaniment that reminds one of Liszt’s piano technique. Here, the fundamental musical ideas are an easy transition between modes belonging to the same scale system, the creeping character of the modal melody without a leading note, the possibility of ‘hetero-modality’ in melody and accompaniment; and, as an extension of this, the possibility of contrasting the modal character of the principal intervals of the melody—perfect fourths and fifths—with the predominantly Lydian, tritonal accompaniment. Below is the beginning of the accompaniment and the melody. After it, the clash of the perfect fourth and the tritone constitutes the basic conflict, which culminates in the outburst of the augmented fourth (fortissimo) at the end of the coda-like third part.

The fifth piece, the Furioso, is a kind of two-part toccata, in which the central idea is a single chord, constructed of a major and a minor second and a major third. The ostinato-like vibration of this chord over the two-line semi-folk song and the frequent organ pedal-points are particularly effective. And it is interesting to note how Kodály, in contrast to the folk song theme, introduces elements usually foreign to him; e. g. the Locrian mode, the use of the augmented fourth, the distuned tonic, and the run in major thirds on the dominant. However, towards the end of the piece, as though by way of reminder, a characteristic pentatonic closing line once again makes its appearance.

In the remaining pieces in the series (apart from No. 8, where the scintillating colour effects derive from French sources), the influence of folk music is even more clearly discernible. Of them all, it is perhaps the sad and plaintive No. 6 that most unmistakably bears the imprint of Kodály’s mature style, with its folk song-like theme supported by an accompaniment sometimes in triplets, sometimes syncopated, and sometimes ostinato. No. 7 consists of a gay folk-dance theme with two variations and a coda. And, finally, the Allegro commodo, burlesco brings the series to an effective close with a display of exuberant humour.

The SEVEN PIECES FOR PIANO (Op. 11) mark a further stage in Kodály’s technical experiments. Of these all, except the third, which was written in 1910, belong to the year 1917-18, The mood of this early piece, which bears as epigraph the line from Verlaine, Il pleure dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville, is typical of the brooding melancholy that gives unity to the work as a whole. But while in this case, as one would expect, the influence of French impressionism is still strong, the other pieces are remarkable for their musical material and technical diversity. The first, Lento, with its melody formed from a combination of the whole-tone and chromatic systems, creates an almost pointilliste effect, in sharp contrast to the second, Székely Lament. In this piece, written in three parts, the melodic material is pure pentatony, and the harmonies are the pentatonic harmonies characteristic of folk song. Among its notable features are, firstly, the dissonant middle section, which opens a semi-tone higher, with harmonies distuned from pentatonic harmonies (auxiliary chords rendered dissonant by the number of auxiliary notes); and, secondly, the ‘unfolding,’ so to speak, of the third strophe, which returns to the fundamental key on the pentatonic dominant. Here Kodály does not follow the melody from note to note, but only in its descending line, until it returns to its starting-point, the whole-tone character gradually giving way to pentatonic consonance:

In the fourth piece, Epitaph, Kodály returns again to the spirit of French impressionism; but the fifth, with its expansive pentatonic melody, and the genuinely folk-type melodies of the two last pieces, are prophetic of his mature style.

But, despite the value of these piano works, it was in the chamber music written for strings that Kodály carried out his most vital instrumental experiments, Already in the FIRST STRING QUARTET (Op. 2), completed in 1909—a work that may almost be regarded as the precursor of his great orchestral folksong variation, The Peacock—he based his music for the first time on elements entirely derived from folk music. Here is the first line of the folk song that constitutes the basis for the melodic material of the work and the character variations that occur in the different movements:

In addition to the melodic figures, the orchestral treatment is also strongly influenced by folk music; while the fresh and original harmonies (apart from the introduction of elements so foreign to folk music as the use of intervals of augmented fourths) stem from the interaction of independent voices, and, throughout, carry conviction. From the formal point of view, the first movement, which resembles a sonata, is followed by a slow kind of fugato movement, then by a fast and dynamic trio-type piece, and lastly by a finale, which introduces a number of variations. The principal theme of the finale consists of a simple major melody, harmonized in accordance with classical rules, The variations are original and imaginative; and one of them, the exceptionally brilliant Allegretto in 5/8 time, was contributed by Kodály’s wife.

The next example of chamber music, the SONATA FOR CELLO & PIANO (Op. 4), written in 1909-10, is derived entirely from folk music. This is made clear by the C-sharp F-sharp G-sharp C-sharp signature at the beginning, by the fact that the melody is constructed on a series of fourths, by the rubato, and by the improvisational style of instrumentalization in the opening movement, the Fantasia. This Fantasia is repeated at the end of the second movement, which is otherwise of regular sonata form, and in this way a formal unity is achieved of a higher order than the mere unity of motives in the First String Quartet. The sense of balance and unity is further enhanced by the symmetrical key structure—the sonata movement, which ends in key of G, being preceded by an F sharp, which is later repeated, while sections in keys with a number of flats are counterbalanced by others in keys with a number of sharps.

The four further examples of chamber music we will consider in many respects constitute a single group, despite their considerable diversity. Written in the period 1914 to 1920, all four of them—the DUO FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO (Op. 7), the SONATA FOR CELLO SOLO (Op. 8), the SECOND STRING QUARTET (Op. 10), and the TRIO SERENADE (Op. 12)—are evidence that Kodály was no longer feeling his way, but had achieved a mature personal style and was already looking ahead to the writing of orchestral works. Moreover, in addition to having a number of formal features in common, all four works are written exclusively for string instruments.

In the construction of the DUO most of the elements are familiar, having already been employed earlier, and the originality of the work is largely attributable to the unusual combination of instruments and to the new possibilities of sound thus provided. In a richly imaginative way, Kodály exploits the similar technical capabilities of the two instruments—the fact that, while both are suitable for performing the same kind of melodic figures, their difference of tone ensures diversity. (One has only to think of the many questions and responses and their harmonious blending, or of the various imitations, and the way they are drawn together in unison passages.) Throughout the major part of the work rubato instrumental folk themes are predominant, though in the Presto of the final movement a children’s song is introduced, with its driving ostinato and rigidly disciplined rhythm. Apart from their familiar use instead of modulations, sequences and ornamental elements abound throughout the Duo. In the midst of the surging pentatonic melodies in the trio of the finale the only firm tonality introduced is that which is based on the distance of the tritone:

The structure of this work is also interesting. The first movement is in regular sonata form. Characteristically the principal theme starts on the pentatonic minor seventh (C in a strongly established D tonality); and the typically folk, four-line form at the beginning is continued, from the third line onwards, with a kind of improvising instrumental style:

The second movement might be described as a sonata loosened into a fantasia, with a double-fugue-like principal theme and strongly contrasted reprise. (Sections A and B of this theme recur later in the form of a simultaneous double fugue.)

The third movement combines a slow introduction, a trio-like form and a coda, with the theme of the second movement being repeated in the last bars of the introduction as though this were an extension of the second movement. The coda, which provides an effective close, is developed out of the clattering semi-quavers of the trio ostinato.

With the SONATA FOR CELLO SOLO, Kodály once again showed himself to be a pioneer, for apart from three Suites by Max Reger, this was the first major unaccompanied work for cello since Bach; though shortly afterwards Hindemith was to compose others. Speaking of the Sonata in an article, ‘‘The New Music of Hungary,’ written in 1921, Bart6k said: No other composer has written music that is at all similar to this type of work—least of all Reger, with his pale imitations of Bach. Here Kodály is expressing, with the simplest possible technical means, ideas that are entirely original. It is precisely the complexity of the problem that offered him the opportunity of creating an original and unusual style, with its surprising effects of vocal type; though quite apart from these effects the musical value of the work is brilliantly apparent. An interesting feature of the SONATA is that here Kodály revives the use of scordatura, as practised in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, which calls for the re-tuning of the two lower strings from C-G to B-F sharp. And, also for the first time, he displays an amazing virtuosity, doubtless as a result of his having to rely on the solo instrument. Discarding the classical structure and configurations in this work, he uses in their place those original figures and other musical devices with which he had experimented in his earlier chamber works. Though the unity of the form as a whole is sustained by the fact that its themes are derived from a common source, the individual movements differ considerably from each other—from the drama of the first movement, through the soaring melodies of the second, to the dazzling virtuosity of the third.

In the SECOND STRING QUARTET what comes as a surprise, even to those already familiar with the development of Kodály’s style, is the profound identification he achieves between his own personal utterance and the spirit of folk music. Here the essence of folk song is transmuted into the stylistic elements of an art music perfectly adapted to classical form, in a way that is only possible for a composer to whom folk music has become his mother tongue. The first movement, with its atmosphere of gloom, contains within itself in condensed form the great ABA structure of the SONATA FOR CELLO AND PIANO (fantasia-sonata-fantasia reprise), and once again the introduction recurs at the end of the movement to form a bridge. The second movement recalls the final movement of the Duo, though here the introduction with its moderate tempo is not a development of, but rather a substitution for, the slow movement, which in this case is omitted. Gradually the distinctive syncopated rhythm of one of the themes of what is, in fact, the finale (the disguised third movement), is woven into the texture of the music; and, indeed, this same theme, as though unable to restrain itself, has already been heard in the slow introduction.

The final movement, the Allegro, is in sonata form, though without a development section; and after what one at first senses to be the close of the exposition, a new group of closing themes is introduced, built in like a trio, which itself constitutes a small, compact two-part form. Then follows a reprise, diversified by a number of short imitations (by way of development), and a coda consisting of a trio-like group of closing themes. The way in which the content of this movement is condensed is most striking. With typical prodigality Kodály pours forth a succession of themes, of distinctive and exquisite beauty—ample proof of his rich melodic invention. This spirited, dance-like finale is also significant from the point of view of form, because, with its peculiar combination of sonata, sonata-rondo, trio and two- and three-part forms, it already foreshadows the creative, unifying formal principle that Kodály was later to assert most perfectly in the Te Deum.

The culminating achievement of his chamber music period, however—is the SERENADE FOR TWO VIOLINS AND VIOLA. Here, in contrast to the Duo, he makes use of closely related instruments, two violins and a viola; and one of the chief merits of this captivating and high-spirited work is the lustrous purity and resonance achieved by the strings. As regards melody and harmony, it represents the culmination of those distinctive feature that had been maturing in his earlier works. Where it transcends them is, above all, in the more organic unity of its thematic structure and its clearer arrangement of key relationship. Here, the key relationships are organically linked, not simply juxtaposed as in the classical sonata. For example, the first movement begins in the dominant and returns to the tonic; the second starts in the sub-dominant, returns to the dominant and ends on the tonic. Later, he was again to make use of this formal unification by means of classical key relationships in the introduction to the Psalmus Hungaricus.

Regarded purely in terms of form, the structure of the work is easy to follow. After a first movement in sonata form, the second is constructed on the principle, AABA, with the second theme constituting a reference back to the main theme of the previous movement. Then comes the final movement, which is a still further development of the kind of ‘combination’ already familiar from the Duo and the Second String Quartet. But here, as the title is perhaps intended to suggest, it is not merely a question of form: for if we experience the musical content of the work more deeply, a moving story unfolds itself. At the start, we hear three musicians, playing a serenade beneath a woman’s window (clearly, the unconventional, swiftly-moving ¾ theme of the first movement, with the flurrying semi-quavers ostinato, is inspired by a serenade):

Then comes a song from the lover (its exceptionally expressive melody fulfilling all the requirements of the contrasting theme of the sonata); while the alternation between the voices of the musicians and the lover, heard now separately, now together, complies strictly with the rules of the development and the reprise. The second movement opens with a dialogue between the lover (viola) and his mistress (first violin), while the tremolos of the second violin suggest the atmosphere of night. To the lover’s pleading the woman replies with laughter, coyness gradually turning into passionate rejection:

At this point, the lover dismisses the musicians (this is where the principal theme of the first movement, the serenade motif, is repeated); whereupon the woman relents, and it is now the man who laughs. (Here, again, the clever alternation of the themes of violin and viola comply with the strict demands of form.) Lastly, the third movement confirms the understanding between lover and mistress, the light-hearted banter between viola and violin developing into a song of satisfied love; and the tale is brought to an end with an invigorating dance. This work, with its classical clarity of structure and sense of proportion, and with its wealth of melodic invention, is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of 20th century chamber music.

Originally in three movements, the OP. 4 SONATA was premièred by Jeno Kerpely and Bartók in Budapest, 17 March 1910. Growing out of the same elemental ‘old Hungarian’ intervals that a few years later were to lend wing to Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, the opening F-sharp minor Fantasia—an artful blend of rubato recitative, folk innuendo (the piano references, à la Liszt, to undamped cimbalom sound) and Debussyian harmonies—epitomises Bartók’s view of Kodály as a composer of rich melodic invention and a perfect sense of form, with a certain predilection for melancholy and uncertainty, and striving for inner contemplation (July 1921). Kodály claimed Beethoven to have inspired the stamping main theme of the second movement, but in its short-winded modal phrases, drone inflections and Háry János-like allusions, it’s nearer perhaps to peasant dance. The return of the Fantasia at the end (the final cello F-sharp cutting through the piano’s distinctive G major triadic spacing) establishes a neat cyclic unity.

Dedicated to Kerpely and first played by him in Budapest on 7 May 1918, the OP. 8 SONATA, admired by Bartók for its ‘unusual and original style and surprising vocal effects’, is an extraordinary tour de force, not so much a reply to unaccompanied Bach as a visionary credo in pursuit of the ultimate, regardless of medium or technical limitation. In seeking his (B minor/major) goal, Kodály even has the lower two strings tuned down a semitone from normal (giving the configuration B-F sharp-D-A), notating them further as a transposing part. Inwardly, the three movements are tightly linked by recurring motifs and intervals. Outwardly, however, the impression is more random, a pageant of rhapsody and change, of sudden contrasts and pensive reflections, all exquisitely detailed in rhythm, phrasing, inflection and dynamics. Epic counterpoint and arresting gesture, recitatives, songs and dances, drones, shepherd pipes, zithers and cimbaloms, veritably a whole gipsy orchestra, make up Kodály’s vibrant dreamland. As monumental for cellists as the Liszt Sonata is for pianists, no more challenging a work exists. Kodály was never again to tackle the form. The THREE CHORALE PRELUDES are arrangements of organ settings formerly attributed to Bach (BWV 743, 762, 747) but in fact spurious.

Kodály’s transcription for cello and piano of the PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN E FLAT MINOR from the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier was made in 1951 and dedicated to Pablo Casals, who had emerged from self-imposed silence in 1950 for the Bach bicentenary. Kodály offers the transcription to Casals ‘in grateful memory of his wonderful renderings.’ Transposed to the more convenient and, for the cello, more resonant key of D minor, the Prelude allows melodic interest to the cello, which, in the Fugue provides the third and fourth entries of the fugal subject.

The SONATINA FOR CELLO AND PIANO was completed in 1922 and originally intended as an additional movement for the two-movement SONATA FOR CELLO AND PIANO, Opus 4 of 1909. Kodály found, however, that his style had changed during the previous decade, making its inclusion in the earlier sonata inappropriate. Broadly symmetrical in structure, with varied and transposed earlier material returning in the second part of the movement, the work remains thoroughly Hungarian in its melodic contours.

Kodály’s moving ADAGIO FOR CELLO AND PIANO, which also exists in versions for violin or viola, was written in 1905 and dedicated, on its subsequent publication, to the violinist Imre Waldbauer of the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet, an ensemble then of great importance in the encouragement and performance of contemporary Hungarian chamber music. It was to this quartet that Kodály dedicated his own second work in that form, while providing the cellist, Jeno Kerpely, with a cello sonata. Tripartite in structure, the first section, which frames a more overtly Hungarian central section, returns in a modified form, slowly and gently unwinding to provide a conclusion.

The CAPRICCIO FOR SOLO CELLO, written in 1915, makes greater technical demands on a performer. After a dramatic introduction it moves forward to a rapid passage of divided octaves, framing a further passage of more complex virtuoso display. The Capriccio ends with gently plucked chords, after an emphatic chordal flourish in a dramatic coda.

Two years later Kodály wrote his HUNGARIAN RONDO, the title of the version for cello and piano of the work for chamber orchestra first performed in Vienna in 1918, under the title Old Hungarian Soldiers’ Songs. This is an apt enough description of the thematic basis of the work, with its first characteristic melody used to frame a series of episodes based on other traditional Hungarian material.

Written in 1914, the DUO FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO, Opus 7 was first heard abroad at the ISCM festival of 1924 in Salzburg. The work maintains a perfect balance between the two instruments. There is something gently rhapsodic in the Hungarian contours of the opening, as the instruments take it in turns to accompany in plucked notes or to state the principal melody, developing into fiercer textures. There is an expressive second movement, thematically related to what has passed, leading to dramatic rhetoric, as the dialogue between the two instruments continues. The cadenza-like Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento is followed by a rapid Presto that sometimes suggests in its sonorities the work of Ravel for violin and cello, before its final march to a brilliant conclusion.

FROM ‘MARA, MARIETTA’
Part One Chapter 3

Slowly across the string your bow travels, drawing out a long line with gravity and grace. Footfalls in a forest, the silent dark; a pool of water, a clearing: Matteo keeps pace, a discreet presence in a dim landscape. The quiet beauty of this dirge makes for a solemn encore. Does it mean you haven’t forgotten El Salvador, the woman mourning the girl she couldn’t be? Does it mean that even if you’re on top of the world, you know what it’s like to be on the bottom? Or does it simply mean you need to ease yourself down after the incredible high of Tzigane? The elegy unfolds, your hands serving your heart as you shape raw emotion into subtle shades of feeling. Sustaining the contours of the slow-moving lines, between pressure and speed, tension and release, your bow finds a balance that makes the music flow. And now Matteo sketches out a new motif, another consolation for loss. Your violin renews its plaintive search with greater intensity—but just what is it you are searching for?

Over the terrain of the music your hand moves the bow, like a blind man his fingers over something unknown. And I, too, move like a blind man: Who are you, Marietta? The force and refinement, the power and delicacy, that I first sensed in you on that patio in Princeton didn’t prepare me for the intensity you’ve shown me tonight. God, what radiant musicality! What splendour! You inhabit music like a calligrapher a line, a hawk the wind, a dancer the dance. Is the ephemeral, then, an element in your ethics of living? Is living the moment all that matters? Or is it simply a question of grace? Hush! Arpeggiated chords glitter; sunlight streams into the forest. The music opens out and dilates, flowing forward in long, arching lines. Within each string your bow discovers nuances of colour; in the tiny space between fingerboard and bridge, it finds an infinity of tenderness. Over what void do you weave this fabric, from what dead do you withdraw your attachment? In a flourish you bring the poignancy to a higher pitch, and then at the place where the bow lives in the string you breathe with more abandon, and let the music dissolve into silence…

‘If I were asked,’ Béla Bartók wrote, ‘in whose music the spirit of Hungary is most perfectly embodied, I would reply, in Kodály’s. His music is indeed a profession of faith in the spirit of Hungary. Objectively this may be explained by the fact that his work as a composer is entirely rooted in the soil of Hungarian folk music. Subjectively it is due to Kodály’s unwavering faith in the creative strength of his people and his confidence in their future.’

For ten years, from 1906 on, Kodály and Bartók spent their summers together, traveling through the villages of their homeland with recording equipment and taking down the ancient melodies exactly as the peasants sang them. The two young composers, acutely aware that in musical matters Budapest had become a colony of Vienna and Berlin, perceived it as their lifework to create an autochthonous art based on authentically Hungarian materials. Armed with the energy of youth and the zeal of the missionary, they persisted despite the carping of critics and the indifference of the musical establishment. Fortunately, what they advocated made too much sense for it to be rejected indefinitely. After a time their ideas caught on.

History separated the two comrades-in-arms. As the regime of Admiral Horthy moved closer to Hitler, Bartók left for the United States. Kodály remained behind, his more adaptable nature choosing ‘internal emigration’—that is, an increasing aloofness from the Nazi tide and the expression of his antifascist sentiments in subtle ways: for example, his Variations for Orchestra on the patriotic song The Peacock, his choral setting of which the authorities had already banned. When Hitler’s troops occupied Hungary in 1944, Kodály’ s situation became precarious, for his wife was Jewish. They found refuge in the air-raid shelter of a convent, where Kodály completed a chorus for women’s voices, For St. Agnes’s Day, dedicated to the Mother Superior who had been instrumental in saving their lives.

Kodály’s enormous impact on the artistic life of his homeland was the result of his functioning as a total musician: composer, ethnomusicologist—that is, scholar and scientific folklorist—critic, educator, and organizer of musical events and institutions. Each of these activities was related to the rest, and together they represented a total commitment to the ideal of freeing Hungarian music from German domination through the spirit of its folklore. From his absorption in the Hungarian folk idiom he distilled a musical language all his own. His melodies are often pentatonic or minor, with sparing use of chromatic inflection. They seem to have been made up on the spur of the moment. This improvisational quality manifests itself in extravagant flourishes, of a kind that are deeply embedded in Hungarian music. Typical are the abrupt changes of tempo, sudden shifts in mood, and a fondness for repetitive patterns based on simple rhythms.

Colorful orchestration and infectious rhythms have established Kodály’s chief orchestral works in the international repertory. Chief among these are the Dances from Galanta (1933), Variations on ‘The Peacock’ (1939), and Concerto for Orchestra (1939). Among the important vocal works are the Psalmus hungaricus (1923) and Missa brevis (Short Mass, 1952). The most important of his works for the stage is Háry János, whose hero was well described by the composer: ‘Háry is a peasant, a veteran soldier, who day after day sits in the tavern, spinning yarns about his heroic exploits. Since he is a real peasant, the stories produced by his fantastic imagination are an inextricable mixture of realism and naiveté, of comic humor and pathos. That his stories are not true is irrelevant, for they are the fruit of a lively imagination, seeking to create for himself and for others a beautiful dreamworld.’ The work is best known through an orchestral suite that scored an international success.

It was Kodály’s high achievement to achieve a fine synthesis of personal style and national expression. As a result, he spoke not only to his own people but to the world.

Zoltan Kodály was Bela Bartok’s fellow traveller both in the affirmation of a new Hungarian music within the post-Romantic European context and in his quest for folk music, exhumed in its authenticity then revitalised, if we might say so, by new use. Curiously, he began his musical training by teaching himself to play the cello. He had not yet moved to Budapest and was still working on his university thesis, devoted to folksongs, when he already—he was only 16—began composing a Romance lyrique for cello and piano. Seven years later, he enjoyed his first success as a composer with his Adagio for violin and piano, which he lost no time in transcribing for cello and piano. After finishing his first string quartet, his Sonata for Cello and Piano, Opus 4 and his Duo for Violin and Cello, Opus 7, it is not surprising that he tackle a large-scale work for which the Duo had been the run-through: a long Sonata for Solo Cello, which, two centuries after Bach’s Suites, an unavoidable monument for every self-respecting cellist, has become a prerequisite for those same cellists.

Whereas the very free use of sonata form is unquestionably striking in this score lasting nearly a half-hour, it is especially the constant invention obtained thanks to the wealth of musical ideas and their connection on the variation mode—the variation, that permanence of folk music—that is noteworthy. In addition, one notices the improvised impression of the discourse and the unity of the whole, the entire sonata being built on a single thematic idea. It is the harmonic flexibility, not excluding modal inflexions in polytonal chords, in a basic key of B minor, that obliges the cellist to play a chord in scordatura (the C and G strings being lowered by a semitone in order to obtain the open chord of B-F sharp-D-A). Finally, the work is remarkable for its technical novelties (effects of harmonics, pizzicati, tremolos and trills, particularly in the highest register) and the virtuoso treatment of the instrument. The work consists of three well-defined movements, with the second and third played without pause. The opening Allegro, marked ‘maestoso ma appassionato’, is serious and taut, the central Adagio is a lyrical meditation, whereas the third movement vibrates to gypsy accents.

Composed in 1915, Kodály’s Sonata was dedicated to Jeno Kerpely, a member of the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet. He gave the first performance on 7 May 1918 at an evening organised by the Society for the promotion of new Hungarian music, devoted entirely to music by Kodály. It was the cellist Pal Hermann who gave the Sonata its Paris premiere five years later.