Verdi and Wagner [antikvár]

PREFACE I wrote this book in remittance of a threefold debt: (1) Verdi's music attracted me for much the same reasons as Bartók's — its impact is as powerful as that of folk music itself. Verdi's work always stood before me like an unknown fortress which one day had to be stormed. (2) It is only as we discover the modal dimensions of Verdi's, Wagner's, Liszt's and Mussorgsky's music that we realize just how little we know about the Romantic roots of Bartók's compositions. And yet, these roots are so deep and so vital! Truly, I feel that I owed ttiis book to all Bartók research — past, present and future. (3) We treat the signs of the "Kodály system" as mathematical symbols. The 12 symbols each designate a musical CHARACTER — and if we recognize which sign represents light or darkness, which is accompanied by a rise or a descent, which embodies a materialistic and which a spiritual experience, why the content of one is expressionistic and the other impressionistic; if, in other words, through the help of signs, we can differentiate between cold and warm colours, between positive and negative tension, if we know for example that the 'FI' lifts high and the 'MA' hides a painful feature — if we understand all of this then, with no more signs than is necessary to cover the tones of the chromatic scale, we shall have conquered something of the realm concealed behind the notes. Without the "armour" which the musical conception of Zoltán Kodály represented for me, I could never have hoped to overcome the great works of the Romantic era. As such, let this book be an 'Hommage a Kodály'. * * * My triple-book on Verdi, Wagner and the origin of 'New Hungarian Music' is supported by the Soros Foundation, USA and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 7