Musical Education in Hungary [antikvár]

PREFACE Hungarian music, after the advanced level it reached in the Middle Ages and its subsequent decline in later centuries, rejoined the main stream of European music in the middle of the nineteenth century through the work of Ferenc Liszt, Ferenc Erkel, and their successors. The distinguished masters of the time, who played an active role at the Budapest Academy of Music, and also at the National Music School, were responsible for evolving a particularly vivid style of playing which encouraged a creative attitude towards music and brought the standard of performance up to international levels. Hungarian musicians appeared all over the world in concert halls and on the opera stage. Soon after the turn of the century the simultaneous appearance of two great creative geniuses in Hungarian music, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, was of particular significance for musical education, for both of them regarded the task of advancing Hungarian musical education as equal in importance to their creative and research activities. The value of their works on the teaching of music was inestimable in the fields of art and education. The force of their ideas and the methods devised to express them were strong enough to overcome the frustrating effects of social conditions in Hungary before the Second World War and compel recognition, achieving a considerable success in disseminating a knowledge of music, popularizing it, and broadening its educational influence. After the liberation of Hungary in 1945 the way was clear to put new and progressive ideas into practice. Hundreds of eager and thoughtful music teachers started out on the road shown them by Bartók and Kodály. The treasury of ancient Hungarian folk-music yielded valuable material for the creative work of composers and music teachers. Whole series of school singing exercises and new textbooks for instrumental playing appeared ; new methods were developed and introduced. The Hungarian People's Repubhc gave the