Zoltan Kodaly - Two Songs for Girls' Choir (3/3)

Zoltán Kodály (Hungarian: Kodály Zoltán, December 16, 1882 - March 6, 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, educator, linguist, and philosopher.

Two Songs for Girls' Choir

1. Fancy (1959)
words by William Shakespeare
2. Maghalok, maghalok (1957)
Folksong from Zabor

Fancy (1959)

This musical setting of a few lines from Act III of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice for a three-part one-sex choir was written for a choral collection in English. The publishers commissioned Britten, Saporin and Poulenc, as well as Kodaly, to set the same text. An incomparible asset of Kodaly's piece in the "peal of bells" that makes up the second half, expressed in the rich, varied harmonies of the choir, which divides into six to eight parts. Làszlo Lukin later wrote Hungarian words to the music.

I shall die, I shall die (1957)

This later, bold and exacting arrangement of the first tune in "Two Folksongs from Zabor" is the solo soprano, three or four contraltos and a female choir, and at some points divides into six or eight parts. The difference between the two versions are explained by the time lapse of 50 years, which had darkened the colours on his compositional palette. The harmonisation has an almost atonal effect (dense chromatism and at some point a series of eerie chords), while the reduction of the folksong text to a single stanza heightens the individual's sorrow to an almost universal grief. The text of altogether four lines is assigned to the soloists, while the choir provides a wordless, fresco-like background between the awesome introduction and the resigned concluding bars. István Kacskeméti rightly says that in this mourning music, so tragically reticent, Kodaly "has bequethed the most personal and human gem in his late choral music."

Category:

Music

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• Zoltan
• Kodaly
• Two
• Songs
• for
• Girls'
• Choir

[domboy65]

Refreshing and beautiful performance of these two rarely-heard treasures. Thank you so much

[Tetrafonia]

These songs (3 videos) are of the most difficult for performers!...

Thanks @bartje11...