Magyar News, 1998. szeptember-1999. augusztus (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1999-01-01 / 5. szám
Béla Bartók he performed some of his own works in concert and composed the celebrated Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste as well as his Violin Concerto. His ballet. The Wooden Prince, and his opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, were both revived after long absences from the stage and he embarked on his last folk music collecting journey in Turkey. The Memorial House currently serves as both a museum and an educational institution. Permanent exhibitions are on the upper floor, including Bartok's rooms and his study. On view are his personal belongings and documents related to his life and career. The exhibits are connected by film shows and recordings of Bartók's piano playing. One very interesting panel chronicles the stoiy of how his remains were returned to Hungary from the United States in 1988. The recital room, on the intermediate floor, is used for concerts, scholarly meetings, and singing and music classes. The famous Rózsavölgyi music house has a small branch on the ground floor of the building. Upon entering the museum, located at 29 Csalán utca, one passes a well-known statue of the composer by Imre Varga, a Kossuth Prize-winning sculptor. One arrives by either bus number 29 from Szépvölgyi út or bus number 5 on route between Moszkva tér and Pasaréti tér. Allow ample time; the bus stops are a considerable distance from the museum, w hich is a bit off the beaten path in a very tranquil area. There are some well-guarded embassies on the street leading to the Bartók Memorial House. A concise 66- page guidebook, available for purchase, describes the home and its acquisition and contains a full chronology of Bartók's life. There are also numerous photographs of the composer with his family, in concert, and during folk music collecting trips as well as a listing of Bartók's compositions. ********** Zoltán Kodály, a composer, pedagogue and ethnomusicologist, was bom in Page 4 Kecskemét, where he is still revered and where his music teaching principles are kept in practice at the Kodály Music Pedagogical Institute. From 1924 to 1967 (the year of his death), he lived in the apartment that now houses the Zoltán Kodály Museum and Archives. The institutes opened to the public in 1990. Many great musicians and composers visited Kodály here and performed his compositions for him and/or rehearsed in the parlor. They included Bartók, Imre Palló, János Ferencsik, Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals. Leopold Stokowski and the child prodigy Miidós Petényi, among many others. One striking feature of this four-room flat is its furnishings. The apartment is in virtually the same condition as it was at the time of Kodály's death. The main furnishings are the fine pieces of folk pottery and homespuns he collected during his folk music collecting journeys. The inner room, with a fine carved desk in folk art style and a large library, constituted the actual workshop of the composer. Besides literature on music history, ethnography, literary history and Hungarian linguistics there are also poetry and fiction masterpieces in Hungarian, German, English, French, Italian, Latin and Greek. The parlor is dominated by two pianos and a bust of Beethoven. Sculpture portraits of Kodály by artist Petri Lajos reinforce the impression that the master himself is still with us. The Kodály Archives is an independent establishment run under the same roof as a coexisting institution of the museum. Its primary purposes are to properly collect, preserve and catalog Kodály documents, photos, recordings and motion pictures and to promote and introduce Kodály research. The materials on exhibit in the museum come from the Archives, which are supported in part by Sarolta Kodály- Péczely, Kodály's widow. The former bedroom is used for temporary exhibits of the museum. The first section gives a rich insight into the composer's workshop. Through selected documents it presents the years of preparation, the major works of certain periods, the masterpieces of various artistic forms and examples of the original ideas of some of the works. Visitors can also see the manuscripts of familiar works as well as neverperformed compositions. The more recognizable include the Psalmus Hungaricus and the choral works entitled For the Singing Hungary. The Kodály Museum and Archives are located at 1 Kodály körönd with entrance made from the principal avenue Andrássy út. The entrance fee allows one to see both entities. The Kodály körönd stop of the yellow Metro line will bring you here. An illustrated 30-page English language guide is available for purchase inside the premises. ********** The Museum of Music History was established in 1969 at the Institute of Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Kodály with his wife Sarolta
