Kodály, Zoltán

(born Dec. 16, 1882, Kecskemét, Hung.—died March 6, 1967, Budapest) Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, and music educator. He played various instruments as a child and studied simultaneously at the university and the Budapest Academy of Music, earning diplomas in composition and teaching and a doctorate in Hungarian folk song. With B, a lifelong friend, he compiled the important (1906), and he continued to make field recordings until World War I made it impossible. He came to international attention with his (1923) and the opera (1926). Kodály created an individual style that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. He devoted much of his energy to developing a school music curriculum that would develop children's musicality, and the “Kodály method” remains in wide use.

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