Zoltán Kodály (December 16, 1882 – March 6, 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, educator, linguist and philosopher.

Though natural inside Kecskemét, Kodály spent most of his childhood around Galánta and Nagyszombat (now Trnava, Slovakia). His father was a lament amateur musician, & Kodály learned to play the violin as a child. He besides sang around the cathedral choir and wrote music, despite having little formal musical education.

Inside 1900, Kodály entered Budapest University to learn modern languages, & began to study music at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, where Hans Koessler taught him composition.

One of a 1st population to undertake a good learn of folk song, Kodály became one of the virtually all important early numbers in the field of ethnomusicology. From either 1905 he visited remote villages to cod songs & within 1906 wrote his thesis in Hungarian folk song ("Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong"). In this period he met fellow composer Béla Bartók, to whom he introduced Hungarian folk song. Them went in to publish many collections of folk together, & it two indicate a influence of folk in their have compositions.

When gaining his PhD within philosophy & linguistics, Kodály attend Paris where he studied by having Charles Widor. There he found, & absorbed influences from either, a music of Claude Debussy. Around 1907 he withdraw to Budapest, & gained a chair at the Academy of Music there. He continued his ethnic music-collecting expeditions across World War I without interruption.

Kodály experienced composed throughout this period, producing ii string quartets, his sonatas for cello and piano and for solo cello (Op. Octonary, 1915), & his duo for violin and cello, however experienced there are no major profits until 1923 while his Psalmus Hungaricus premiered at a concert to celebrate a fiftieth day of remembrance of the union of Buda & Pest (Bartók's Dance Suite premiered on the same occasion.) Below this profits, Kodály travelled throughout Europe to conduct his music.

Kodály afterwards became super concerned in the problems of music education, & wrote much of training music for schools, also when books on the subject. His act therein field experienced the profound symptom in musical education two in & outside his residence united states. Occasionally commentators refer to his idewhen as a "Kodály Method", although this seems something of the misnomer, when he did non actually function out the comprehensive method, like laying down the placed of lesson to watch inside music education.

He continued to compose for broker ensembles likewise, by having a Dances of Marosszék (1930, around versions for solo piano & for to a full orchestra), the Dances of Galanta (1933, for orchestra), a Peacock Variations (1939, accredited per Concertgebouw Orchestra to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary) & a Missa Brevis (1944, for soloists, chorus, orchestra and organ) among his better known works. A suite from either his opera Háry János (1926) also became swell known, though pack productions of the opera itself require place.

Kodály remained within Budapest across World War II, retiring from teaching inside 1942. Inside 1945 he became a president of a Hungarian Arts Council, & within 1962 received the Sequentially of the Hungarian Humans's Republic. His more posts involved the presidency of the International Folk Music Council, & honorary presidency of the International Society for Music Education. He died witharound Budapest in 1967, one of a virtually all respected & swell known numbers in the Hungarian arts.

Within 1966, a month prior to Kodály's dying, a Kodály Quartet, a string quartette known as around Kodály's honour, formed.

Compositions
Otherwise a compositions mentioned above: Concerto for Orchestra (1939)