Music - Budapest - page 419

Music
Hungary's contribution to music - especially the classical variety, called ko-
molyzene (serious music) in Hungarian - belies the size of the country and its
population; its operas are world class. Of particular note and interest is Hun-
garian folk music, which has enjoyed something of a renaissance over the
past few decades thanks to the táncház (dance house) phenomenon.
Classical Music
When it comes to Hungarian classical music, one person stands head and shoulders above the
rest: Franz (Ferenc) Liszt (1811-86). He established the sublime Ferenc Liszt Music
Academy, still the premier performance space in Budapest, and lived in an apartment on VI
Vörösmarty utca from 1881 until his death - the apartment is now the Franz Liszt Memorial
Museum . Liszt liked to describe himself as 'part Gypsy', and some of his works, notably the
Hungarian Rhapsodies, do echo the traditional music of the Roma people.
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) were both long-term residents
of Budapest; Bartók lived at II Csalán út 29 in the Buda Hills (his former residence is also
now a museum ) , while Kodály had an apartment at VI Kodály körönd 1 along Andrássy út
for more than four decades. The two made the first systematic study of Hungarian folk music
together, travelling and recording throughout the Magyar linguistic regions in 1906. Both in-
tegrated some of their findings into their own compositions - Bartók in Bluebeard's Castle ,
for example, and Kodály in his Peacock Variations .
The most prestigious orchestras are the Budapest-based Hungarian National Philharmonic
Orchestra and the newer Budapest Festival Orchestra.
Ferenc Liszt was born in the Hungarian village of Doborján (now Raiding in Austria) to a
Hungarian father and an Austrian mother but never learned to speak Hungarian fluently.
Opera & Operetta
Ferenc Erkel (1810-93), who taught at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy from 1879 to 1886
and was the State Opera House's first musical director, is considered the father of Hungarian
opera. Two of his works - the stirringly nationalistic Bánk Bán, based on József Katona's
play of that name and considered the national opera of Hungary, and László Hunyadi - are
standards at the Hungarian State Opera House.