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sai-national.org • FALL 2017 • PAN PIPES 39 By Jayne I. Hanlin O pened in 1990 in Budapest, Hungary, the Zoltán Kodály Memorial Museum and Archives is on Andrássy Avenue 87-89 at Kodály Körönd (named for Kodály in 1982). A Hungarian körönd is a British circus. On the main street of this rounded open area is the mezzanine flat where this Hungarian composer resided for almost fiy years. Before exploring his living quarters, which are almost exactly as they were when he occupied them, I spent about half an hour watching a documentary that emphasized aspects of the composer's career and long life (1882-1967). is overview (produced in 2011-2012 and filmed mainly in black and white) covered a broad range of topics, including his home town, formative years, marriages, philosophy, and collaboration with Bartók. e museum apartment itself has four rooms filled not with luxurious belongings as one might expect but rather Transylvanian folk art souvenirs. Inside were brightly colored embroideries, especially gorgeous crewel, and ceramics. Among other treasures were programs of his own performances as well as photos reminiscent of his artistic collaborations with musical greats: Yehudi Menuhin, Aram Khachaturian, Pablo Casals, and Leopold Stokowski. Near the entry is one extraordinary item in a glass case: the composer's handwritten doctoral dissertation (very thick and about 5x8 inches in size) between its green covers and wrapped with twine. is is quite a different format from today's research documents. e dining room, the first room on the right of the entrance, is not furnished elaborately. Apparently, if you happened to be a visitor or a guest at 5 PM, you were served mint tea and cakes at the dining room table, which Kodály's first wife, Emma, also used to sort documents about her husband's career. Aer Emma's death, Kodály married his second wife, née Sarolta Péczelya who was 19 at the time, and she continued this tradition of categorizing at the same place. All of these papers are now a part of the archives housed next door. Guest musicians rehearsed and performed in the next room, a two-piano salon where daylight floods through the large windows. A Beethoven mask is above the door; easier to see are sculpture portraits of the composer. Tamás Vásáry, later Kodály's assistant at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, was one of the pianists who played in this room. No doubt this is where Miklós Perényi played the Kodály Sonata in B minor for solo cello, Op. 8 for the composer. Footage of this prodigy playing this piece appears on the introductory video. Since I am a cellist, this room has one item of special interest to me— the composer's cello, an instrument he taught himself to play aer learning the violin at age ten. His cello, damaged in World War II, has been repaired but was in its closed case. I hope that from time to time, a luthier opens the case and attends to the care of the instrument to insure no further damage results from temperature changes or lack of humidity. On each of two entire walls in the adjoining library with its carved desk there are about a dozen shelves, each filled to the brim with books on a variety of topics in several genres. e books are not written merely in Hungarian but other modern and even ancient languages (Greek and Latin) too. On display there were also a globe, a few folk instruments, and recording devices he used in collecting folk songs. e composer transcribed over 5100 of them and said, "Every village le a mark in my heart." How touching! On the le of the entrance is the former bedroom, which now houses temporary exhibits in large glass cases. When I visited, there was a display of csárdáses, Hungarian dance songs. Kodály had a collection of over 2500, but only 150 are currently on view. ese were carefully chosen by Mrs. Kodály from the archives for this exhibition. Kodály wrote operas (such as Háry János, Op. 15), orchestral music (such as Dances of Galánta), chamber music (including two string quartets and, of course, the unaccompanied cello sonata mentioned above), and choral music (Psalmus Hungaricus celebrating the 50th-anniversary of the unification of Buda and Pest). In addition, Zoltán Kodály is beloved by many who as youngsters benefited from the Kodály Method of musical education. In July 2017, a Kodály Seminar, honoring the 135th anniversary of the composer's birth as well as the 50th anniversary of his death, was held in Kecskemét, Hungary where the composer was born. The Zoltán Kodály Memorial Museum A WORLD OF MUSIC FOR MORE INFORMATION visit kodaly.hu/museum

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