In September 1974, Katalin Szőnyiné Szerző took up a position as a research scholarship trainee at the Hungarian Music History Department of the Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Zenetudományi Intézete (Institute for Musicology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), headed by Dezső Legány. From 1976 she worked there as a junior research assistant, and between 1979 and 1983 as a research fellow. Her principal task – as preparatory work for the forthcoming five-volume academic handbook series Magyarország Zenetörténete (The Music History of Hungary) – was the exploration of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian pupils, including the oeuvre of Ödön Mihalovich, the compilation of their catalogues of works, and the presentation of Mihalovich’s thirty-two-year-long institutional career at the Liszt Academy. From 1980 onwards, she began the systematic study of the history of the Hungarian musical press by preparing an annotated bibliographical survey of the first Hungarian professional music journal, Zenészeti Lapok (Musical Papers, 1860–1876). In the same year – and again in 1982 – she conducted Liszt research at the Goethe-Schiller Archiv in Weimar.
In 1982, following the release of Himnusz (National Anthem of Hungary) and Szózat (The Appeal) on a Hungaroton long-playing record, she prepared a half-hour scholarly educational radio programme on the recording at the request of the Magyar Rádió (The Hungarian Radio Corporation). The programme was broadcast in May 1982 on Kossuth Rádió and generated such strong interest that it had to be repeated “by popular demand” in August.
In February 1983, she was informed that she would be dismissed from the Institute for Musicology as part of a collective redundancy. Over the following three years (until 1986), as a recipient of a postgraduate research scholarship from the MTA Tudományos Minősítő Bizottság (lit. Scientific Qualification Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), she worked as a visiting researcher at the Library of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music and at the newly re-established Liszt Museum, focusing on nineteenth-century Hungarian musical press history and on source research relating to Liszt and his Hungarian contemporaries. In April 1985, she travelled on a one-month state scholarship to Parma, to the European centre of the Répertoire International de la Presse Musicale (RIPM), where she explored the history of the relationship between Franz Liszt and the Milan-based music journal Gazzetta Musicale di Milano, owned by the Ricordi publishing house.
Between 1986 and 1989, she was employed as senior music editor at Editio Musica Budapest and, as a scholarly editor, took part in the publisher’s ongoing work on the complete critical edition of Liszt’s works.
In May 1989, she was invited to give a lecture at the Faculty of Musicology of the University of Amsterdam, and at the same time conducted research for the Hungarian music publisher on nineteenth-century Dutch Liszt sources. In 1993 and again in 1995, she spent one month in Vienna on a state scholarship, carrying out research into Ferenc Erkel and the Viennese press of the Reform Era, as well as into the sources of Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Dances preserved in the Brahms collection.
From June 1989 until January 1994, she worked as a research fellow at the Music Collection of the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (National Széchényi Library). In 1991, in Le Mans, France, she served as the musical scriptwriter and director of the seven-room exhibition Haydn és az Esterházyak (lit. Haydn and the Esterházys). In early 1993, she was commissioned by the Széchényi Library to organise the centenary exhibition dedicated to Ferenc Erkel. The exhibition, held in the Corvina Rooms of Buda Castle and enriched with extensive fine-art and literary-historical materials, remained open for six months and achieved significant professional and public success. (Fine arts consultant: Hedvig Belitska-Scholtz; literary consultant: Borbála Wyx.)
From January 1994 until 31 December 2008 (her retirement), Katalin Szőnyiné Szerző served as Head of Department and Chief Librarian of the Music Collection of the National Széchényi Library. It was during this one-and-a-half-decade-long leadership period that she achieved her most significant professional accomplishments. Among other initiatives, she launched and supervised the library and scholarly organisation of the nineteenth-century music collection of the National Theatre. By coordinating the digitisation of Ferenc Erkel’s manuscripts and complementary National Theatre sources – through a joint grant project with the MTA Zenetudományi Intézet (Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and the Rózsavölgyi publishing company – she contributed to the establishment of a modern scholarly source base for the complete Erkel edition and to the publication of the critical editions of Bátori Mária, Hunyadi László, and Bánk bán. As custodian of the Music Collection’s world-renowned Haydn collection, as well as of the Schubert, Erkel, Liszt, and Goldmark manuscripts, she organised and co-organised numerous Hungarian and international music exhibitions. In 2007, on the occasion of the Day of Hungarian Culture, she curated an exhibition on the history of the Hungarian national anthem in the Relics Collection of the National Széchényi Library. – As part of her collection development work, she enabled the establishment of a modern National Sound Archive within the Library by replacing the record holdings of the Music Collection destroyed in October 1956, systematically acquiring private collections, and installing a complex studio system obtained through a Japanese governmental grant. As reference librarian for music information services, she initiated the modern Hungarian and international premieres of numerous forgotten works preserved in the Music Collection’s manuscript holdings. Among these, she played a decisive role in the realisation of the academic world premiere of Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor (MH 559), preserved in the Esterházy Collection of the Music Collection, performed on 8 November 1996 at the Liszt Academy under the preparation and direction of Kálmán Záborszky. As part of her cultural-diplomatic activity, on 2 December 2005 she initiated – with the involvement of the Artistic Director of MÁG (Hungarian State Concert Orchestra) (and with the participation of the leadership of the National Széchényi Library) – the visit of Prince Antal Esterházy to the Széchényi Library, accompanied by a temporary exhibition. This event was of outstanding significance in fostering relations between the princely family and the Hungarian state and in shaping forms of cooperation for the 2009 bicentenary Haydn Year.
Research activity: As a scholar, Katalin Szőnyiné Szerző’s principal field is nineteenth-century Hungarian music history, with particular emphasis on musical Hungarisms – including the sources of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances – the history of national melodies, Ferenc Erkel, Franz Liszt and the Hungarian Liszt circle, as well as the oeuvre of Ödön Mihalovich. She has published studies on the history of the Hungarian musical press, on the history of the Academy of Music and the Music Collection of the Hungarian national library, and on the patronage activities of the Esterházy princely family. Within Bartók philology, her studies on the textual sources of Bartók’s stage works are of particular importance. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Hungarian and international edited volumes and scholarly journals.
Professional affiliations: From 1998 to 2002, Katalin Szőnyiné Szerző served as Secretary of the Music Section of the Magyar Könyvtárosok Egyesülete (Hungarian Librarians’ Association), and from 2002 to 2006 as its President. Between 1994 and 2008, she represented the National Széchényi Library within the international association of music libraries (AIBM). She is also a member of the Liszt Society, the Music Section of the Magyar Alkotóművészek Országos Egyesülete (Hungarian Association of Creative Artists), and the Magyar Zenetudományi és Zenekritikai Társaság (Hungarian Musicological Society). Within the Erkel Society, she serves as a member of the board; in 1995 she initiated the establishment of the Hungarian Haydn Society, and in 1996 became one of its founding members and a board member. Since 2006, she has been a full member of the Music Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
[2016]