[Tanulmányok]

Remembering Lajtha – Paris, 1968
An Historical Assessment of the Lajtha Memoirs by his West European and Hungarian Contemporaries (1929-1963)
Melinda Berlász

In the years after László Lajtha’s death, ten contemporary artists – Lajtha’s friends and acquaintances – paid tribute to the late Hungarian composer in recollections upon the initiative of János Gergely, editor of the French-language periodical Études Finno-Ougriennes. Eight of the writers were West European composers and ethnomusicologists working in the sphere of attraction of Paris culture (Henry Barraud, Emmanuel Bondeville, Jacques Chailley, Alphones Claude Leduc, Salvador de Madariaga, Albert Marinus, Marcel Mihalovici, A. Adnan Saygun), with two contemporaries representing the Hungarian colleagues (Sándor Veress and Lajos Vargyas).
These remembrances preserve a multitude of facts and personal characteristics of Lajtha: through them, the Hungarian composer’s presence in Paris – which, though sporadic, spanned several decades –, his contacts with his contemporaries and the network of events he was involved in become realistically clarified. In the light of this foreign viewpoint, the often vague and idealized Hungarian | French cooperation concerning Lajtha can clear up important questions of his biography and the genesis of compositions. The writings published in 1968 failed to be included in that-time or later Hungarian research literature on Lajtha, principally because the periodical was unknown.
The paper is to interpret the personal relations between Lajtha and his contemporary creators, pointing our their importance for international art and science. The author also plans to publish the collection of memoirs in Hungarian and English languages.

Synthesis of Tradition and the Present in Sándor Veress’s Passacaglia Concertante
Epilogue to a concert performance of Veress’s composition
Melinda Berlász

The Passacaglia Concertante, for oboe and String instruments by Sándor Veress, is of special importance among his other works composed in the 1960s. The synthesis of the form of two baroque compositional genres: the passacaglia and the concerto have provided him a basis for a stylistic change. Building upon a foundation with the baroque traditional elements of structure, while being consciously attached to the eastern roots of his own compositional style, Veress was successful in joining the newest tendencies of western stylistic components (i. e. dodecaphony) with the elements characteristic of his earlier works. It is the special synthesis of eastern and western traditions which distinguishes the Passacaglia concertante first of all. After the wonderful performances in Hungary by Heinz Holliger, new for the first time, an outstanding Hungarian oboist, László Hadady has also chosen it as a piece in his programme.

Music and Intuition
Péter György Csobó

The paper discusses an essential problem of musical reception: what are the cognitive and perceptual conditions of musical interpretation. The reflection of this problem in the history of musical aesthetics was linked with the adaptation of the intuition concept, and with the epistemological rethinking of a perceptional hierarchy. The problem moved in the 19^th century from the antinomian concept to dialectical immediacy: the disagreement of the plastically - musically, beauty - sublime, and interpretation as survey or as feeling overshadowed the dynamic concept of acoustical intuition (E. Hanslick) and the intentional concept of acoustical intuition (H. Riemann). As a result of this, transfiguration indicates intuition as cognitio sensitive acusticae, a special forma of musical reception and the object of this reception forma coexists before and after music.

Zoltán Kodály’s Art of Fugue
About the neo-classicism of the Concerto for Orchestra
Anna Dalos

Although Zoltán Kodály’s name has frequently been associated with trends in 20th-century neo-classicism, his oeuvre has never yet been examined in detail from this perspective. This is certainly the case for the Concerto for Orchestra (1939/1940), which in terms of its Bachian quotations, fugue and characteristically Baroque rhythmic types is the paradigmatic work of Kodály’s neo-classicism. This study attempts to reinterpret the form of the piece with the support of Kodály’s sketches, and strives to clarify the role of baroque elements and quotations in the composition. I draw on theories of stylistic history (specifically the Baroque) of the German art historian Heinrich Wölfflin, whose university lectures were heard by the young Kodály in Berlin, in 1906. Part of my argument is that Kodály implanted Wölfflinian characteristics of the Baroque style in his Concerto. I also suggest, however, that his intention was not merely to establish a Hungarian Baroque music (as argued by Szebolcsi). His Concerto also reflects his conception of folk music, which he conceived as bearing an archaeology of centuries of music. In this respect he created a stylistic synthesis, in which various historical-stylistic layers – folk music, Baroque elements, Classical forms, national romanticism, impressionism and new Hungarian music – appear simultaneously.

In the Workshop of the Musicus
László Dobszay

The Alleluia Natus est beyond some Central- and North-Italian occurrence is recorded only by the Missale Notatum Strigoniense. The variants shows that the “musicus” in Hungary adapted the melody to the “pentatonic” dialect prevalent in this country. In contrast, when an Fransciscan antiphonary takers over an antiphon on King St. Ladislaus from the diocesan sources changes the emblematic d-a-cí formula to d-a-b, as it is correct in the “diatonic” dialect. That means, the existence of Gregorian dialects “though never mentioned in the medieval theoretical writings” belonged to the theoretical concepts of the contemporaneous musicians.

Address Given at the Press Introduction of the First Volumes of the Edition of Erkel’s Operas
Miklós Dolinszky

Bátori Mária (1840) was one of the first romantic national operas in Eastern-Europe. Contrary to the widely held belief, contemporary critics expressed their appreciation even after the premiere of Erkel’s two other operas that had been played with prolonged success, and Erkel himself even quoted from this piece in the score of Bánk Bán. Nonetheless, Bátori Mária was definitively removed from the repertoire of the Hungarian National Theatre in 1860. This was due to the ever increasing radicalism of the demand for national music on the one hand, and to the change of taste that ensued from Wagner and Offenbach coming to the fore in Hungary on the other. Even so, the work fulfilled its mission: it proved that a national language was compatible with international musical idioms and the typical plots of opera as a genre.

Liszt’s Roman Experience of Palestrina in 1839
The importance of Fortunato Santini’s library
Zsuzsanna Domokos

This study focuses on Liszt’s first Roman period in the first part of the year 1839 and his first experiences of the Palestrina-interpretation in the Cappella Sistina, as well as his acquaintance with Fortunato Santini, which so far has not been researched in the Liszt-literature. Fortunato Santini’s rich and very valuable library of autographs, first editions of Palestrina’s works, and many manuscript copies prepared in the most important Roman archives by Santini himself, plus the evening concerts held in his home, served as a starting point for Italian and foreign musicians of the time to research 16th century music. Among the visitors we find Liszt, Cramer, Fétis, Mendelssohn, Otto Nicolai and Vadimir Stasov. This study gives a brief description of the Santini-collection and summarizes all the information obtained from various sources which give a more precise insight into the personal relationship between Liszt and Santini and into the repertoire which Liszt might have studied during his first Roman sojourn.

19^th-Century Paths to Palestrina’s Music: Differences in Approach of the Italian, German, and French Editions of the Missa Papae Marcelli
Zsuzsanna Domokos

For the 19th-century interpretation of Palestrina’s works, the publications serve as important sources since the publishers preparing their editions had to make decisions also in musical matters. The first editions published during Palestrina’s lifetime represent the original sources. These are choir books, containing only the most necessary musical information, as the way of performing was evident, thanks to the living tradition. However, the tradition was broken, except in the Cappella Sistina and even there it went through continuous changes. Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century, when the reform movements in church music began to promote the revival of 16th-century a cappella music, especially that of Palestrina, the authentic publication and performance of the representative compositions of the style to be followed raised serious problems. Because of the discontinuity of the traditional way of interpretation and the fundamental changes in musical thinking, the 19th-century publications of Palestrina’s works differ greatly from each other. After all, there were no important, complete editions of documentary value produced since the 16th and early 17th-century publications.
The study musically analyses some Italian, German and French publications of the Missa Papae Marcelli between the 1840s and the 1880s with the aim to find the conceptional similarities and differences among the different schools underlined by aesthetical writings of the time.
The whole analysis is based on the account for the original sources serving as bases for these editions and also gives some musical examples of the performance practice of the Cappella Sistina, the traditions with which every publisher was familiar with.

19^th-Century Paths to Palestrina’s Music: Differences in Approach of the Italian, German, and French Editions of the Missa Papae Marcelli
Zsuzsanna Domokos

For the 19th-century interpretation of Palestrina’s works, the publications serve as important sources since the publishers preparing their editions had to make decisions also in musical matters. The first editions published during Palestrina’s lifetime represent the original sources. These are choir books, containing only the most necessary musical information, as the way of performing was evident, thanks to the living tradition. However, the tradition was broken, except in the Cappella Sistina and even there it went through continuous changes. Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century, when the reform movements in church music began to promote the revival of 16th-century a cappella music, especially that of Palestrina, the authentic publication and performance of the representative compositions of the style to be followed raised serious problems. Because of the discontinuity of the traditional way of interpretation and the fundamental changes in musical thinking, the 19th-century publications of Palestrina’s works differ greatly from each other. After all, there were no important, complete editions of documentary value produced since the 16th and early 17th-century publications.
The study musically analyses some Italian, German and French publications of the Missa Papae Marcelli between the 1840s and the 1880s with the aim to find the conceptional similarities and differences among the different schools underlined by aesthetical writings of the time.
The whole analysis is based on the account for the original sources serving as bases for these editions and also gives some musical examples of the performance practice of the Cappella Sistina, the traditions with which every publisher was familiar with.

Berlioz Visiting Hungary in 1846
Maria Eckhardt

The only year Berlioz visited Hungary was 1846 when he conducted two concerts from his own compositions on 15 and 20 february in the Hungarian National Theatre in Pest. The most important element of this visit was the orchestration of the Rákóczi March, an emblematic Hungarian national musical piece of the time. Birth, reception and further fate of Berlioz’s Marche hongroise had been amply discussed by other authors, the present study focused on the general reception of Berlioz by the Hungarian audience as reflected in the local press of the time (8 Hungarian and 3 German-language newspapers and journals). Berlioz was controversially received everywhere, and Hungary was no exception in this respect. However, here politics had a greater weight in the judgement than in most countries, and while Austrian-oriented critics in Hungary were mostly ultra-conservative and ill-disposed to Berlioz’s highly innovative music, reviewers symphatizing with the upcoming Hungarian national direction proved to be much more open and sensitive to it. Although this was the first occasion that symphonical programme music in romantic style was performed in Pest (a city prepared well for this by Beethoven’s orchestral music), the programmatic orchestral pieces: the Carnaval romain, the selected movements from Harold en Italie and Symphonie fantastique were much better received than the songs (Le chasseur danois and Zaїde - Boléro). But it was only the Rákóczi which evoked an extraordinary enthousiasm: this Hungarian march, ingeniously orchestrated by Berlioz, even in the conventional form Marcia – Trio – Marcia – Coda was interpreted as a programmatic description of a victoriously ending battle. The political element of the reception was most explicitly described by the Hungarian correspondent of the Allgemeine Wiener Musikzeitung whose ironical review expressed the anxiety of the Viennese authorities more and more recognizing that national music was for Hungarians an important tool to achieve political independence, and Berlioz’s Marche hongroise was a milestone on this way.

Towards a Performance History of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin: Preliminary Investigations
Dorottya Fábián (The University of New South Wales)

The paper examines the recorded history of performing Bach’s Solos for unaccompanied violin (BWV 1001-1006). Starting with an overview of the early reception and performance history of the works, it continues with a brief account of editions and a summary of the various interpretative approaches one can observe in the more than forty available recordings issued between 1903 and 2002. This is followed by a more detailed examination of various aspects of performance such as vibrato, portamento, bowing, rhythmic projection, articulation and ornamentation. Placing these trends in their historical context, the study also summarizes typical aesthetic notions and shows how various audio- and performance analysis tools and methods may help to account for these features. The results are interpreted in terms of how historically informed approaches are distinguishable from mainstreamperformance styles and how these interact. The findings contradict some general opinion regarding trends in tempo choices and provide evidence for a discussion of how violin playing and Bach interpretation have changed over the last 100 years.

Neapel - Eisenstadt - Győr (RAAB)
Contrafacta of Arias by Nicoló Conforto in Benedek Istvánffy's Copy
Zoltán Farkas

In the early 1980s the Hungarian musicological research unfolded the life and work of probably the most gifted Hungarian composer of the time, Benedek Istvánffy (1733-1778), Kapellmeister and organist at Győr (Raab) Cathedral. So far, to our present knowledge two masses and ten minor church works survive of his oeuvre, most of them are published in score and also available on recordings. The composer's biography is insufficiently documented, showing the greatest lacunae with respect to his formative years. At the same time a considerable number of indirect evidence supports a hypothesis about his relationship with the Esterházy court in Eisenstadt and its Kapellmeister Gregor Joseph Werner.
Istvánffy copied 144 musical sources fully or in part for the music collection of the Győr Cathedral, seven of them were composed by Nicoló Conforto (1718-1793). As Ágnes Sas convincingly argues, these also refer to the Hungarian composer's relationship with the Esterházy court, given that Conforto's compositions could not be found in such a great number in Central Eastern Europe's music collections. Apart from Győr, his works were known in Eisenstadt, too: as an envoy of the Austrian Empire to Naples, Count Pál Antal Esterházy became personally acquainted with the Italian master, and he even commissioned Conforto to compose a cantata for the birthday of the Empress Maria Theresa. He also aquired some operas and other compositions by Conforto and brought them to Hungary on his return. Katalin Kim-Szacsvay recognized that the seven sources in the Győr collection are contrafacta of Conforto's opera arias. She identified the original of four contrafacta (set on liturgical texts) with arias from Conforto's Antigono, the only opera surviving in the Esterházy music archives. This collection preserves two sources of the opera: a score (without recitatives) and parts of an instrumental transcription of the arias for trios and quartets (flute and strings), as for the prince himself could perform the main 'voice' on flute or violin. The author has scrutinized the Esterházy score and parts and compared them to the parts of the Győr contrafacta, and, respectively, consulted with another Naples source of the opera. As a result, he states that neither the Esterházy score nor the chamber music transcription could serve as a model (Vorlage) of the contrafacta. There is no conclusive evidence that Istvánffy should have been the author of the contrafacta but the modern idiom of Conforto's arias had surely a palpable and beneficial influence on his own music.

Variation as a Reflection on Form
Question of form in the Goldberg Variations
Gergely Fazekas

"Musical form" is applied in the literature of music theory to two fundamentally different concepts: form as a totality of features that individual works have in common, and form as a constituent that makes a single work unique. Since this differentiation is a theoretical construction of the early 19^th century, it can only be applied to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with reservations. The present essay, however, argues that this dichotomy was already present in the musical thought of the first half of the 18^th century and it can be used as an effective tool in the analysis of the Goldberg Variations. The analysis focuses on the formal design of the individual variations and the way they reflect the inherent formal relations of the fundamental bass, the so-called "theme" of the work. It is shown that contrary to the 18^th century tradition of the "aria+variations" genre, where the theme appears through the variations in different guises but fundamentally unchanged, the Goldberg Variations - as examined from the viewpoint of musical form - seem to demonstrate the old Aristotelian distinction of actuality and potentiality: the different formal designs that appear as actual in the individual variations were potentially already there in the theme.

"Who Will Roll Away the Stone for Us?"
A supplement to a paper presented 25 years ago
Ilona Ferenczi

When celebrating Dénes Bartha's 75^th birthday (1983) I had the opportunity to present a paper on my then recent opinion about the fragment in the cover of the Vietoris Tablature Book (dating from around 1675). Contrary to previous claims, the material taken from the cover does not contain 18^th century pieces but mainly hymns in the Slovak language which recur in the Vietoris Tablature Book with or without changes. There is, however, another fragment in the material, as well: the Slovak translation of the Easter Dialogue by A. Hammerschmidt. Taking this fragmentary source as a starting point, the present paper discusses the ethnic problems in the history of Hungarian music and the necessity of changing our approach to history. It is done with the conviction that the appropriate assessment of history still poses a problem and that not only outside the borders of Hungary.

Choralsätze im ödenburger Stark-Virginalbuch
Ilona Ferenczi

Das Musikleben der Stadt Sopron/Ödenburg wurde ab 1628 fast ein Jahrhundert hindurch von drei Organisten und Kapellmeistern, von dem niederösterreichischen Andreas Rauch, dem mährischen Lukas Psyllius und dem von Ruszt stammenden Johann Wohlmuth geleitet. Ausser ihnen wirkten in den verschiedenen Kirchen Kantoren, Sänger und Instrumentalisten grosser Mänge.
Aus der Zeit, als Wohlmuth Musikdirektor in Ödenburg war, ist ein kleines Virginalbuch erhalten. Es heisst: „Tabulatur, Johann Jacob Starcken zugehörig, welcher den 3. December 1689. in Gottes Namen den Anfang zum Schlagen gemacht. Gott gebe seinen Segen darzu.“ Das Virginalbuch ist eine Tabulatur im damaligen veränderten Sinne, also nicht mit Tabulaturschrift notiert.
Im Virginalbuch befinden sich verschiedene (auch ungarische) Tänze, Präludien, Arien, zwei Trompetenstücke und 15 Choräle in einfacher Bearbeitung. Auf den ersten vier Seiten der Handschrift steht eine kurze theoretische Zusammenfassung für die Virginalspieler mit der Verwendung der Schlüssel, Noten, Rhythmuswerte, Taktarten, Kadenzformeln und verschiedener Zeichen.
Die Vorlagen zu den Melodien der 15 Choräle waren vermutlich die Gesänge aus der Ödenburger Gemeinde. Die Art und Weise der einzelnen Bearbeitungen können wir mit denen der Choralbücher vergleichen, die aus dem 18. und vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts aus der Stadt Ödenburg und ihrer Umgebung erhalten sind. Auf zwei Choralbücher wurde man in letzterer Zeit aufmerksam, und das eine von ihnen (1725) scheint in direkter Verbindung mit der Tätigkeit des damaligen Ödenburger Kantors, Gottlieb Grünler zu stehen.

Making Musical Instruments in Hungary during the 16th – 19th Centuries
An investigation with the method of Kornél Bárdos
Eszter Gát Fontana

It is possible to establish a connection between the structure of towns and cities on the one hand and the main branches of their population’s gainful employment as well as their musical traditions on the other. This thesis was first advocated by Kornél Bárdos.
Musical instrument making can either be carried out on a small-trade basis or as a large-scale industry. Both forms require a reliable and sufficiently broad customer base, middle classes interested in music and a tradition of musical instrument making. There are examples for prominent small workshops (with 1-2 employees), but also for factories (with 10 – 30 employees). They usually lasted several generations.
Studying the history of musical instrument making in the important towns and cities of Hungary, it becomes clear that local musical instrument makers can be documented first and foremost in the royal free cities or the major commercial centres of the country. Other key factors were the geographical location of the respective city, the religion and the time when it was liberated from Ottoman rule.

The Unbearable Lightness of Ethnomusicological Complete Editions: The Style of the Ba’al Tefillah (Prayer Leader) in the East European Jewish Service.
Judit Frigyesi (Bar Ilan University, Jerusalem)

A Tribute to László Somfai

In Jewish music scholarship, it has been accepted that the melodies of the ba’al tefillah (prayer leader) are improvised orally within the framework of a melodic mode. Because of that reason, Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical music is commonly represented as a repertory of melodies, which are possible to concentrate in a complete edition that is read with the tacit understanding that the melodies may be varied in the performance. This paradigm does not seem to hold true for the art of the East-European traditional prayer leader. The melodies of the prayer leaders cannot be conceived of as variants within a modal type. They are independent artistic creations, compositions in the sense this word means in Western music. Like in art music, “composition” here does not mean complete freedom; the prayer leader has to compose within – better to say: or against – a musical-stylistic framework. The article attempts to show the nature of this compositional attitude among the traditional East-European prayer leaders, demonstrating that the individual solutions cohere to a complex artistic work that are deeply connected to the unique musical orientation, personality, artistic character, and life of each prayer leader.

The Role of Narrative Analysis in the Comparative Approach to Performances.
The Adagio of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
Márta Grabócz

This article makes an attempt to synthesize the results of some of my earlier researches.
Their aim was to examine in the very details the strategy of the slow movements of Bartók compositions the subject of which is the “meeting of Man and Nature” (Op.10/1 “In Flowers”; Op.12/1 “Preludio”; IVth quartet/III (“Non troppo lento”). With the help of these “intertextual” [comparative] analyses I examine here the “Adagio” of Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta: namely its strategy (=form) in the specific use of topics (“intonations”).
In the last part of the article I compare the performance of six conductors at the key-moments of the 4th section of this palindromic structure (ABCB’A’).

How to Beat the Sun?
Reflections on a futurist opera
Ádám Ignácz

My paper focuses on an composition of the Russian avantgarde of the early 20th century. The work - a futurist opera titled "Victory Over the Sun", first performed it 1913 - was co-composed by Alexei Kruchenykh, Kasimir Malevich and Mikhai Matyushin. I present information about the genesis and reception of this composition. I attempt to reconstruct the intentions of the composers and discuss the difficulties of classifying the piece as belonging to the genre of opera. In connection with this I also discuss the ambiguity of the genre itself and argue that thi: futurist work - a representative piece of various avantgarde aspirations - is in fact an heir to the Romantic idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

In the Footsteps of Kodály?
The Chorus in 20th Century Hungarian Music and Musical Life
Mihály Ittzés

The reform of Hungarian music education and the choir movement were based on Kodály’s initiatives from the mid-20s. The German Liedertafel oriented practice and spirit was exchanged for the new folk music-based Hungarian music and the European renaissance a capella repertoire. The Singing Youth movement was organised from 1934. In the amateur choir movement more and more male choirs were reorganised as mixed choirs.
After World War II, especially in the 50s communist cultural policy gave a strongly political face to the choral movement and repertoire. In the 60s a wide gap appeared between the avant-garde and average demand and possibilities. During the past two decades many composers have returned to the earlier tradition of composition techniques.
The successes of Hungarian choirs at international competitions represent the great development based on the Kodály reforms.

Die vergessene Symphonie
Adrienne Kaczmarczyk

Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit den kompositorischen Fragen der Revolutionssymphonie und mit den Gründen des Aufgebens des Plans von ungefähr zwei Jahrzehnten (1830-1853). Die Untersuchung ihrer drei verschiedenen Konzeptionen beweist, daß es Beethoven’s 9. Symphonie war, die für Liszt als Vorbild diente, und daß er dabei Auflösung jener Probleme suchte, wie die Gattung der sogenannten Ode-Symphonie fortgesetzt werden kann. Obwohl er beim Komponieren der Revolutionssymphonie keine genügende Auflösung gefunden hat, kann die Entstehungsgeschichte der Symphonie zum besseren Verständnis des Ursprungs der Programmsymphonie-Konzeption von Liszt ebenso wie seines Weimarer symphonischen Stils in allgemeinen verhelfen.

Franz Liszt’s Fist Hungarian-Symphonic Attempt: The National-Ungarische Symphonie
Adrienne Kaczmarczyk

The idea of combining the Hungarian national style in music with the style of the Western European symphonic music occupied Liszt’s mind from 1840 on. His first attempt at solving the problem was the National-ungarische Symphonie, a composition he planned to write in the 1840s but appears neither in Liszt’s own catalogues nor the modern catalogues of Liszt’s works. The present study examines the nature of this symphonic scheme taking into consideration the surviving manuscripts and the musical relationships of the planned work. The National-ungarische Symphonie had close ties both with the piano cycle Ungarische Nationalmelodien (1839-46) and the unfinished plans of Symphonie révolutionnaire dating from about 1840 and 1850, respectively. On the other hand, the plan of the Hungarian national symphony influenced indirectly the concept of Hungaria (1854) and Hunnenschlacht (1857), that is the symphonic poems in which Liszt first solved with success the problem of joining the Hungarian national style to the Western European symphonic one.

Bartók Analysis in America
János Kárpáti

The study focuses on the American analytical approach to Bartók, particularly the books by Elliott Antokoletz (The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1984) and Paul Wilson (The Music of Béla Bartók. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
Without underestimating the logic of the methods of the two above discussed American theorists and the validity of the musical phenomena and of the hidden or overt creative conceptions revealed in their work, the study concludes with two main critical remarks: (1) The title of both books The Music of Béla Bartók promises an all-embracing, complete picture of Bartók’s music. The result, however, is far from being so broad. (2) Both analyses concentrate on the pitch content, examining the peculiar tone-structure of a given work or detail (movement, section) identifying in them either the cells, or the sets understood in a narrower or wider sense. At the same time the authors completely disregard the several other but equally significant musical components of the works.

Why Haydn's D Major Symphony No. 96 is a "Miracle"?
János Kárpáti

One of the most important issue of Dénes Bartha's scholarly output is the fact that he consequently fighted against a petrified, up to now living theory of Adolf Bernhard Marx. Summing up Bartha's statement, those structures defined by Marx "dreiteilige Liedform" are, as a matter of fact, either "dreiteilig", nor "Liedform". The second movement of the Symphony in D major - although it does not figure among Bartha's examples - a brilliant model of the actual four-part structure, opposed to the three-part dogma. Further examples are provided how well the term enjambement introduced by Bartha serve the orientation in musical structures. And finally - presenting some analitical remarks about splendid economy, harmonic audacity and rich use of solo instruments of the symphony - , I try to prove that the erroneously attributed nickname "Miracle" can be really justified from musical side.

Performance Typology in Japanese Shinto Ritual Kagura
János Kárpáti

The ceremony of Shintô religion named kagura, accompanied by music and dancing, has a thousand year old tradition. Departing from the classification stamped by the name of Prof. Yasuji Honda, I am proposing a more distinctive classification according to types of the performance, supported by musical structures as well. As an issue of my research, I am proposing a new classification based upon the place and persons where and by whome kagura is performed, and upon the use or non-use of masks. Considering these criteria, we get three basic classes: (1) court kagura, a ritual with dance, without mask, (2) shrine kagura performed in or in front of a shrine, without mask and/or with mask and dance, (3) stage kagura, a ritual play with mask and dance.

Contemporary Reports of the Wedding of Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and Beatrice of Aragon
Unrecognized dependences among the sources and their musicological consequences
Péter Király

The contemporary German reports of the Hungarian royal wedding of 1476 are well known to historians. Scholars specializing in different fields of cultural history have frequently used and analysed these documents. But since their research has been focused on what the sources tell about the wedding, about the artefacts etc., and, at the same time, not much interest has been devoted to the sources themselves, it has remained unrecognised that three of the four reports from Germanic lands have a common origin. In fact these three (two of them in German and one in Latin) derive from an unknown common source, probably a Latin description of the festivities. Between the three versions there are significant differences, due to the translation as well as resulting from the rewriting and reorganizing of the text. The differences are not without importance for any kind of research, including musicology.
The present philological study shows that the differences in the sources concerning the music of the wedding celebrations, which until now have been considered as differences due to the personal observations of different eyewitnesses, should in fact be reclassified as the result of reworkings by unknown scribes, although it is impossible to decide which version best follows the unknown original.

The Court Trumpeter in 16^th and 17^th Century Hungary
Peter Király

In spite of the huge quantity of data from the 16th and 17th centuries on court trumpeters in Hungary not much attention has been devoted in the past to their tasks by musicologists. In particular, the question remained unanswered whether they were only military trumpeters, as suggested by the authors of historical studies, or were they at least partly “real” musicians. This study – based on previously-published documents as well as on archival research – attempts to give an overview of the work and different tasks of court trumpeters in Hungary. Although most of the sources provide little detail on the trumpeters, scattered data helps us to establish a firm picture of their role in court life. As a final result it is possible to state that many of the court trumpeters – in substantial part (but not solely) foreigners, mainly from the Germanic lands – acted as competent musicians, playing not only trumpet and other related brass instruments, but also other kinds of instruments.
Some musical sources with trumpet parts from the territory of historical Hungary are also referenced. These originate mainly not from courts, but from cities and churches or monasteries.
In this study the available 16^th and 17^th century data from Hungary on the teaching of young trumpeters-within the country or (sometimes) abroad is also presented. Another part deals with the sparse information about the instruments (also on their parts and repairs), and also with the (heraldic) standards attached to trumpets and the trumpeters’ special clothing that was worn during festivities.
The author considers the present study as a first step in establishing a trustworthy picture of the role of Hungarian court trumpeters. For a better and more detailed overview much future research is needed.

De tonorum cognitione
- tonal variants in late medieval repertory of the Mass
Gábor Kiss

One of the most exciting facet of medieval concepts about music are the efforts to rationalize, categorize and record the melodies. The employment of the system of modes caused serious difficulties to a melody repertory that was transmitted orally and was not developed under the rules of the 8th-mode system, defined only at a later stage. The desire for a categorization of the melodies became specially strong with the introduction of staff notation. The melodies or parts of melodies that did not fit in the system were qualified as extraordinary by contemporary theorists. Two methods were used to resolve such conflicts: the introduction of 'extra' tones on the one hand and the changing of the melodies on the other, adapting them in this way to the system. Some kind of interaction between musical memory, theoretical categorization and notation remained (continued) even in the late Middle Ages. In late medieval sources we can find a large number of tonally ambivalent melodies that were not referred to in the earlier treatises. Nevertheless, in these examples the same duality of spontaneous musical reproduction and rationalizing shows itself as can be observed in the theoretical writings mentioned above. In the alternative tonal classifications different decisions and preferences are concealed, concerning the perception and interpretation of the melodies. The inherited 'decisions' became generally fixed and preserved in the different local traditions, consequently these variants are useful means in the comparative examination of the sources and source groups. While some of the variants are only mere transpositions, in other cases the alternative classifications are connected to different and more individual versions of the same melody. The aim of this study is to present several types of tonal variants found primarily in late Central European sources for the Mass.

Ordinary Melodies in the Context of the “Old Roman Chant” Question
Gábor Kiss

The author gives an overview of the Ordinary melodies in the Old Roman sources and tries to evaluate their repertory by using a wider range of Italian and, especially, Beneventan comparative sources. A survey of the melodies reveals a conspicuous paucity of items that appear as a stable element in the standard repertory. Moreover, the Old Roman melodies differ markedly from the later Ordinary repertories concerning their style, use of mode, melodic structure, etc. Their repertory does not show the same variety and heterogeneity that often characterize the repertory of later traditions or even that of a single source during the Middle Ages. On the contrary, the material gives the impression of a remarkable uniformity and consistency. In the use of such melodies the Old Roman sources share with other contemporary Italian sources. Apparently, this melodic thinking belongs to the musical practice and taste of the 11^th-13^th century Italian repertories. Since the archaic character and stylistic traits of this repertory differ sharply from those of the Gregorian Ordinary repertory, the question emerges whether the 11^th-13^th century Italian sources preserved a melodic tradition or melodic taste prior to the Carolingian period. Nevertheless, this layer of melodies completely disappears from later Italian sources, where they were obviously suppressed by new Ordinary melodies following a different melodic taste and aesthetic principle.

The Genesis of Kodály’s Laudes organi
Katalin Komlós

The text of Laudes organi, the 12th-century sequence “Audi chorum organicum”, survives in several manuscript sources. Kodály had probably used the Leipzig version (14th-century Gradual from the Augustinian monastery) as it appears in the 1929 transcription by Peter Wagner (Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 12/2).
The autograph sketches (Kodály Archives, Budapest) provide valuable information about the compositional process: the gradual transformation of the melodic borrowings from “Audi chorum”; the development of the tonal structure; the painstaking work on the long solo sections of the organ.
The article closes with a suggestion for the overall form, and tonal plan of the composition.

Sketches and Their Characteristics in Ernő Dohnányi's Manuscripts
Ilona Kovács

In many cases sketch-studies are like deciphering a difficult puzzle. To solve these riddles by reconstructing the compositional process one needs a big amount of patience and practise. No doubt, however, it is worth devoting time to sketch research, because as Nietzsche put it in his Untimely Meditations: "To understand the picture one must divine the painter."
The first half of the study focuses on general description of Dohnányi's sketches that can be found on single sketch leaves or in bundles of bifolios, and more rarely in sketchbooks. It also provides with a detailed list of musical symbols and other signs in these manuscripts that were frequently used by the composer.
Since nobody researched Dohnányi's sketches so far, the second half of present study attempts to sort out the main types of them. Not only distinguishes the major types of sketch items, but gives clear illustrations, as well. The aim of this study is to provide a basis for further research that would contribute to a better understanding of Dohnányi's compositional process.

The Hedgehog: of Fragments Finished and Unfinished
Richard Kramer

Reprinted from 19th Century Music Vol. 21 No. 2 Issue: Fall 1997 pp. 134-148.

Free and "Free" Variations in Dohnányi's Works
Veronika Kusz

The variation form played a central role in Ernst von Dohnányi's musical ouvre: the composer utilized it very often from his earliest years until his last opus. In one of his most popular pieces, the Variations on a Nursery Song (op. 25), Dohnányi wrote free character variations on an internationally known children's song. It is important to note, however, that in contrast to the reputation and popularity of the work, he rarely employed this type of variation strategy. Though one can find many Dohnányi variations that are apparently liberated from their themes, the freedom of these examples derives from a basically different musical conception. The first type of these "free" variations follows the strategies of Beethoven's developmental variations (also called "formal outline' , "fantasy" or "free" variations) by excerpting a musical motive (a "variation seed") out of the theme, developing it, and creating a texture so different from the starting point that it actually seems to be a "free" variation. A second type appears in multi-movement instrumental cycles, in which Dohnányi recalls a motive or a theme of another movement, and uses the strategy of free variations as a device to organize the cycle. This study examines these types of "free" variations in Dohnányi's Variations and Fugue on E. G.'s Theme (op. 4) and Symphonic Minutes (op. 36).

Some Impressions on the Performance Tradition of the Bartók Violin Concerto
Péter Laki

The recording of the world premiere of Bartok’s Violin Concerto with Zoltan Szekely is an exceptionally valuable document, yet at the same time it is unique: Szekely’s background as an artist (his career as a quartet player in particular) sets him apart from all subsequent interpreters of the concerto. Therefore, younger players have had to develop their own approach to the work, even if this means that their style is sometimes at variance with Szekely’s.

The Making of a Folk Song Arrangement Cycle: The Sources of Bartók’s Eight Hungarian Folksongs
Vera Lampert

In 1918, when Universal Edition became Bartók’s publisher, the composer considered only the “5 Szekler songs” of 1907 and the three soldiers’ songs of 1917, among his numerous unpublished songs, worthy of publication. Examining the rich source material of the Eight Hungarian Folksongs, one can follow the process by which the two groups of songs, written a decade apart, became a unified composition that can be performed convincingly as a song cycle. Bartók revised all of the songs, most probably during the 1921-1922 concert season. His emendations, applied to all of the songs, were generally directed towards the thinning of the accompaniment. The most significant textual changes affected the earlier group where one of the songs was discarded and replaced; radical changes happened also in nos. 1 and 4. In the second group, no. 7 was also altered in a significant way. When establishing the final order of the songs, Bartók kept the songs of the two groups together, the earlier group starting the cycle, the later one closing it. He also slightly rearranged the sequence of the earlier pieces and transposed the later ones.

The Post-Baroque Mozart
as reflected in his arias with instrumental solos
Ferenc László

The aria with instrumental solo (in Mozart's mother-tongue: "Arie mit obligatem Instrument") is a type characteristic of the baroque era. There are hundreds of such arias in Bach's cantatas. However, there are just a few works of Mozart where he succeeded in integrating it into his own style - labelled as classic by posterity - in a way where the equilibrium of vocal and instrumental solos lives up to the great baroque paragons (K 490, 505). Sometimes the instrumental solos encompasses part of the aria only (K 74a[87]/13, K 418), is a mere decorative accessory (K 74a [87]/13, 621/9, 621/23), or even an ostentatious showpiece at the cost of the vocal solo (K 612). The choice of the instrument (trombone, oboe, horn, violin, piano, double-bass, clarinet, basset-horn) might have been suggested by the lyrics on one occasion only (K 35/5), in the majority of cases it was incidental and personalised. The formal typology of these pieces progresses from the baroque Da Capo (K 35/5) and the slow-fast-slow-fast four-section sonata layout known from the works of Corelli, Teleman and others (K 46a[51]/9) through the ABACA rondo (K 208/10) to the slow-fast two-movement layout which was also referred to as a rondo (and mainly spelt Rondò) in Mozart's mature era.

Bartók und seine Liedtexte
Ferenc László

Der junge Bartók vertonte 1898-1900 insgesamt neun Texte von Heinrich Heine, Karl siebel, Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Friedrich Rückert, Nikolaus Lenau und Goethe, und nur in zwei Fällen gab er in den Noten den Namen des Dichters an. Im sechsteiligen Zyklus Liebeslieder betrachtete er die Texte als ob diese einfache “objets trouvés” wären: Mit grosser inneren Freiheit passte er hie und da den Wortlaut seiner augenblicklichen Lebenslage an. (Das „Libretto“ dieses Zyklus kann in mancher Hinsicht für einen Präzedenzfall zu dem der 30 Jahre später entstandenen Cantata profana gehalten werden, wo die Textvorlagen rumänische Volksdichtungen waren.) Bartók nahm sich ähnliche Freiheiten auch in seinen ungarischen Liedern nach Gedichten von Lajos Pósa (Vier Lieder, 1902-1903) und Endre Ady (Fünf Lieder op. 16, 1916), wenn auch in geringerem Maße. Im unvollständig gebliebenen Gelegenheitswerk Fünf Kinderlieder (1905) vertonte era us dem Gedächtnis zu der Zeit allgemein bekannte Verschen. In Fünf Lieder Op. 15 verschwendete er seinen Genius auf Gedichte, die tief unter dem Niveau seiner Musik liegen. (Sie stammen von zwei Teenies aus der Provinz, die als Erwachsene ihre dichterischen Ambitionen aufgaben.) Die jahrelang dauernde Entstehungsgeschichte der deutschen übersetzungen zu Op. 15 und Op. 16 veranlasste Bartók wiederholte Enttäuschungen. Die bei der Universal Edition schließlich erschienene deutsche Version von Op. 16 hat ihn auch nicht befriedigt.

Wien, Klausenburg, Hermannstadt: Schauplätze von Philipp Caudellas (1771-1826) Laufbahn
Ferenc László

Der aus Mähren stammende Musiker hat in Wien bei Albrechstsberger studiert und ist dort vom Rang eines Klaviermeisters zum Kapellmeister des russischen Botschafters Prinz Kourakin aufgestiegen. Er komponierte auch, seine Werke wurden verlegt und in der Fachpresse besprochen. (Der Beethoven-Zeitgenosse wurde als Mozart-Epigon eingestuft.) 1810 verließ er (aus vorläufig unbekannten Gründen) die Kaiserstadt und lebte vier Jahre incognito (angeblich in Russland). Anfang 1814 erschien Caudella in Siebenbürgen, zuest in in der neuen Provinzhauptstadt Klausenburg (rumänisch: Cluj, ungarisch: Kolozsvár), wo er bei einer adeligen Familie als Klaviermeister diente und kompositorisch kaum tätig war. 1817 wurde er in der früheren Hauptstadt Siebenbürgens Hermannstadt (rumänisch: Sibiu, ungarisch: Nagyszeben) regens chori der katolischen Stadtpfarrkirche und Professor der Tonkunst am Evangelischen Gymnasium, wodurch er die ökumenischen Ansichten des späten 20. Jahrhunderts vorwegnahm. Seine Kreativität wurde wieder aktiviert: Er schrieb neben katolischer Kirchenmusik auch ein Choralbuch für die Evangelische Landeskirche und pädagogische Werke (Klavierschule, Generalbass-Schule). In seinem Lebenslauf wiederspiegeln sich die „Gesichtszüge“ dreier Musikstädte.

Ligeti-Manuscripts of the Late Herman Eisikovits
or: a Swiss Dille wanted
Ferenc László

Dr. Herman EISIKOVITS (1923-1994) was a paediatrician in Kolozsvár (aka Cluj, Rumania), former grammar-school classmate and friend of György Ligeti, with whom he also played chamber music as a violoncellist. In the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basle there are not only his letters written later to Ligeti open for survey but also the music manuscripts of the composer dating from the beginning of his career which Eisikovits held onto until his old age and which had not been published earlier in the Ligeti literature. The contents of these music manuscripts include: (a) three early, previously unrecorded works of Ligeti, of which the first, the "Small Piano Trio" is a complete work, "In Memoriam Vivaldi" is a rather characteristic passage, and the third is an unnamed violoncello part of an unknown piece and (b) material supplementing two already recorded works (Arietta, Ostinato). The author firmly believes that the early compositions of Ligeti, which shed light on the issue of "what makes a composer" should be studied in detail, in the spirit of Denis Dille who devoted a highly work-intensive book to Bartók's compositions that had preceded Op. 1.
In the Appendix (New Data Complementing the Genesis of the "Six Bagatelles") of the paper the author rectifies, based on the results of research he did in the Paul Sacher Stiftung, his earlier assumptions regarding the first performance of the composition held on 13^th April 1956 under the title "Five Bagatelles" (Ferenc Lász1ó: "Ligeti a hídon/Ligeti on the Bridge" in Magyar Zene, Vol. 41. 2003/4, pp. 361-374).

Kodály’s Influence on Hungarian Composers from Romania
István G. Németh

The paper offers a review of those composers from Transylvania who had been influenced by Zoltán Kodály. Members of the older generation had known him personally. This group of Transylvanian composers includes Árpád László (1864-1960) who consulted Kodály about his own compositions in Budapest in the year 1928 and Gábor Jodál (1913-1989) who studied composition at the Budapest Academy of Music between 1939 and 1942 along with folklorist János Jagamas and choir director István Nagy. Some representatives of the later generation like Cornel Þãranu (*1934) still had the opportunity to pay a visit to Kodály. Others had access to Kodály’s art through Gábor Jodál, their teacher of composition at the Kolozsvár/Cluj Academy of Music - this is the case of Aladár Zoltán (1929-1978), Ede Terényi (*1935) and Csaba Szabó (1936-2003). Further compositions and statements of Csíky Boldizsár (*1937), Péter Vermesy (1939-1989) and György Orbán (*1942) testify that Kodály’s choral works were (for Boldizsár Csíky: are) considered as a model for new pieces. The paper also contains analyses of Aladár Zoltán’s Divertimento for chamber orchestra (1964), Péter Vermesy’s pair of hommage-pieces - Postludium in memoriam Kodály Zoltán (1978) and “... Super sepulchrum Kodály Zoltán” (1982) both of them quoting motives from Kodály’s Psalmus hungaricus and György Orbán’s mixed choir Kádár Kata (1971), an arrangement of a folk ballad modelled on Kodály’s Molnár Anna belonging to the same genre.

”Umerenno” or “Andantino molto”
On Musorgsky’s tempo markings
Márta Papp

Until the end of 1872, Modest Musorgsky gave his works Russian language tempo and performing instructions, which was a departure from generally accepted tradition. Before the stage premiere of Boris Godunov and the publication of the piano score, he exchanged the Russian markings for the traditional Italian, and from then on, exclusively used Italian in his manuscripts. This is an external change but it represents something more: it is a sign of metamorphosis of his musical style. The majority of passages in the first version of Boris, marked “Umerenno” [“Moderately”] is music which the composer intended as “recited” music with a flexibly changing tempo. The score of the definitive version was furnished with far more detailed and differentiated tempo markings, making us suppose more closed, or at least, music units that are more clearly differentiated from each other. This latter characterises Khovanshchina and Sorosintsi Fair, and other Musorgsky works from the 1870s, while in works written at the time of Boris and in earlier songs, we encounter versions of the “Umerenno style”.

Musorgsky and the East
Exoticism and Modality
Márta Papp

The use of modal scales and harmonies is an essential characteristic of Modest Musorgsky’s first opera Salambo with its exotic subject as well as in his other Oriental compositions (above all Yevreyskaya Pesnya, 1867). The modal variability of these works is unique among the exotic compositions of 19th century Russian music. The paper refers to the modal-polymodal characteristics of Salambo and Yevreyskaya Pesnya, and tries to answer the question of where the musical vein for modality comes from in Musorgsky and what was to become of it after the composer has ceased writing such exotic pieces.

What Did Hear Esdras Edzardi?
Tibor Pintér

The main aim of the article is to reconstruct a musical performance of a sacred concerto "Wer is der, so von Edom kömmt" by the Collegium Musicum, Hamburg, which took place between 1660 and 1674. It's source is to be found in Johann Mattheson's Der Vollkommene Capellmeister. The basic question is the authorship of the performed sacred concerto. Mattheson relates it to Matthias Weckmann, but according to several other researches this piece is written by Sebastian Knüpfer. The author of the article investigates all the sources and references of the work and the possibilities of the authorship. As there is no final answer to the questions the author looks into a manuscript which is definitely a work by Sebastian Knüpfer. The entire manuscript is worth publishing. Paradoxically the main result of these philological analyses is not proving the authorship but rather the finding of the manuscript itself.

The Consonant Gb
Pál Richter

In Kodály’s choral works without folk music background, the text usually has an influence on the melody and harmony structure. However, in his choral arrange¬ments of folk songs melody patterns esentially determine the harmonies. Each melody style, mode, and tonality (not only major-minor) can call into existence its own harmonies, which create repulsions and attractions. There are common harmonies from a formal point of view, they have a wide range relationships, and they can be used in various interpretations. As a composer Kodály was interested in the influence of partial tones, and he took them into consideration in part writing, particularly of choral works. An investigation of the choral works for 2, and 3 voices for children’s, and female choirs revealed that apart from the functio¬nal relationships of classical music, harmonies were assigned independent grounds, especially the minor seventh in Kodály’s compositions. Minor seventh harmonies were important to Kodály because of their ability to relate to different modes, and tonal systems. An obvious example is the use of the tones in the pentatonic system in Hungarian folk music, and its framing interval of minor seventh.

Commedia dell’arte and Puppet Theatre
The „Experience of Irreality” in the Ballet Capriccio by Lajtha
Emõke Tari Solymosi

The ballet Capriccio (Farce dansée - Puppet theatre, op. 39, 1944) by the Hungarian composer László Lajtha (1892-1963) has not yet been the subject of research. The ballet was written with the purpose of providing an inner escape in an almost unbearable historical period. Its plot is a typical commedia dell’arte, placed in the 18th century and presented by puppets, and it is one of the most mysterious pieces of his oeuvre. There are only a few data about its formation, it has never been choreographed, nor premiered on stage, and its score has not been published. There are several versions of the libretto but it is not perfectly clear who wrote them. This is one of the two pieces by Lajtha which were originally composed for piano four hands. Is it possible that Lajtha intended this composition for a puppet theatre? If so, which one? In attempting to answer these questions, the study provides several new data on the Hungarian puppet theatre in the first half of the 20th century, mainly on the National Puppet Theatre directed by István Árpád Rév, and especially on its musical connections.

The "Classical" Last Scores of Béla Bartók
László Somfai

The success of Bartók's last compositions written in the USA (Concerto for Orchestra 1943, Sonata for Solo Violin 1944, Third Piano Concerto 1945) irritated the progressive music scene in the 1950s. According to post-war leaders of new music (Leibowitz, Scherchen, Boulez, etc.), these scores represented a "path of compromise" for the USA listener. This study demonstrates that Bartók's method in composition radically changed in America, which influenced the general impression of the new works. He missed the perfect isolation of his studio for improvisation at the piano, a precondition for composition in Budapest. In America he could best work on new scores during his holidays in Saranac Lake, NY, or in Ashville, NC (see the table). Writing the draft notation, now Bartók switched from ink to pencil, outlined his new compositions in shorter thematic blocks (see examples 1-4). Besides, Bartók's anxiety about the fate of the people in Hungary and Europe was an important motivation when he adopted folklore imaginaire themes, stylistic references, and created the narrative of the major wartime compositions while a stylistic compromise for the American audience was not. The characteristic titles of the movements, however, can be marked as an aide to the listener. Incidentally, each of the three late scores has its own motivation and this crucially influenced the concept and the style: after a long period he wrote a large-scale symphonic work, made a violin solo inspired by Menuhin's Bach rendition, elaborated a concerto not for the pianist-composer himself but for his wife Ditta.

A Tribute to Kornél Bárdos 1921-1993
László Somfai

According to Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (2nd rev. Ed., Personenteil Bd. 2, 1999):

Bárdos gilt als bedeutendster Forscher der Musikgeschichte der ungarischen Städte des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts. Seine Forschungsmethode beruhte auf vollständiger Erschließung archivalischer Daten.

This is a precisely formulated summary of the central research topic and the method of Musikhistoriker Kornél Bárdos whose entry in the MGG - perhaps surprisingly for some – exceeds the entry of the internationally recognized Hungarian Musikwissenschaftler Dénes Bartha. On the other hand, the fact that the 2001 edition of New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians sets a somewhat shorter space for the Bárdos entry may be the result of the recognition that his work is a typically central-European approach deeply rooted in the German musicological tradition. By all means, in both encyclopedias the “Hungarian music” entries repeatedly refer to Bárdos’s fundamental researches.
Kornél Bárdos’s posthumous recognition is a great satisfaction to the Hungarian musicology. In 1989, when he was honored with the grand prize of the Hungarian Art Foundation Mûvészeti Alap - although at this point Bárdos got hold of two higher degrees (kandidátus and Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), already produced five of his six monographs on the musical life in Hungarian towns, and the majority of his thirty-some scholarly essays –, the major part of the Hungarian musical life had but insufficient information about the scope and significance of the accomplishment of this modest man. They did not know that being a Cistercian priest Bárdos worked in a manifold disadvantageous position. For decades, as a fulltime music teacher, Bárdos had to work in his spare hours in archives in Hungary and neighboring countrie; that only at the age of 57 got a research job in the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (The best narration of the chronicle of his life and his views on musical scholarship can be read in three interviews in Muzsika 1984/2, 1989/5, 1993/2, made by Péter Király and András Borgó, resp.)
The most valuable part of his achievement is represented by six large volumes dedicated to the musical life of Pécs, Tata, Gyõr, Sopron, Eger, and Székesfehérvár in the 16th-18th centuries, based on documentary evidences (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976-1993). Bárdos’s philosophy was that all existing archival sources must be detected, even bills and lists among financial papers of an episcopate or school, an aristocratic realm or the administration of the town. He successfully differentiated the structure of the musical life in Hungarian market towns vs. royal boroughs. Each volume includes a thematic catalogue of the musical sources located in the town, a useful part even for those who cannot read Hungarian.
Probably less successful was Bárdos as an editor of the second volume of Magyarország zene-története [The history of music in Hungary 1541-1686], 1990, a thankless job inherited from another scholar. Indeed, he was not the type of a commanding chief in teamwork. Bárdos, even in his late years, preferred to work individually as a gentleman scholar. Fortunately, his favourite volume, the Third, is in good hands today. His one-time team in the institute (Á. Gupcsó, Z. Farkas, K. Renner, Á. Sas, and others) takes care of the scholarly foundation as well as the careful presentation of the immense work. They even open new vistas with the style analysis of the 18th and early 19th-century music in Hungary, an approach that Kornél Bárdos – with a typical understatement of his personal capabilities, although in his earlier essays he embarked on analytical work successfully (e.g. in the Volksmusikartige Variierungstechnik in den ungarischen Passionen 15. bis 18. Jahrhundert, 1975) – cultivated less and less in his mature books. Thus calling him in the MGG as Kornél Bárdos, Musikhistoriker, in the final analysis is a fair classification.