Erzsébet Szőnyi

Her pedagogical and artistic (performing and creative) activities are inseparable from one another. Both branches of her professional life define her oeuvre, and the only difference lies in which field – teaching or artistic work – happens to be in the foreground at a given time.

Already in her secondary-school years both her musical sensitivity and her pedagogical ability became apparent. As a student of the Szilágyi Erzsébet Girls’ Grammar School she composed her first works: a considerable number of sacred choral pieces with Latin texts (e.g. Pater Noster, Ave Maria), folksong arrangements (e.g. Virágos kenderem [My Flowering Hemp], Lement a nap [The Sun Has Set]), and numerous piano pieces. Naturally, several influences can be detected in these works: the bourgeois background and love of Romantic music that came from her family environment, as well as the impact of the secondary school where, thanks to her legendary music teacher (Adrienne Sztojanovits), she became acquainted with Bartók’s choral works and Kodály’s folksong arrangements. Her compositions for piano, written at the age of fifteen, are mainly formal studies (sonatina, rondo, fantasy, romance, prelude, capriccio), which she already assigned opus numbers to in a deliberate manner. The most significant song from this period is Der Fichtenbaum und die Palme, composed to a text by Heine and inspired by a poem found in their schoolbook. These manuscript pieces are characterised by the spirit of the age, the Romantic style, and within that primarily the Schumannesque tone.

Her early demonstrations of performing talent are shown by the fact that she often accompanied the school choir at concerts and performed Liszt’s Gondoliera. Her pedagogical vein first manifested when she organised and led a self-education music circle for her classmates who were interested in music. They did not only study earlier periods of music history but also Bartók’s and Kodály’s folksong research. She wrote various thematic summaries for these meetings. Together with her music-loving friends she founded a choir, which she directed for years. With the support of her religion teacher, they regularly took part in church services, during which she – still as a student – played the organ and conducted. It was here that she gained a deeper understanding of Gregorian chant and sacred musical literature.

At the Liszt Academy she continued the secondary-school music-teacher training course alongside composition one year later. During these years, however, her performing side remained dominant. Since she sight-read exceptionally well and was an excellent pianist, not only her fellow students but also the Academy’s professors frequently asked her to accompany them. Over the years she became familiar with the song repertoire and a large part of chamber music. Her versatility is demonstrated by the fact that in addition to choral conducting she also pursued studies in conducting and even violin. Together with two string-player colleagues she performed trios on Hungarian Radio. Her broad musical interests manifested not only in instrumental performance but in solo singing as well. She continued to lead the Szilágyi School choir. She attracted professional attention when she conducted Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in St Stephen’s Basilica.

Alongside all this, she composes music: her own Magnificat is premiered, written for the jubilee of her former teacher. With her piano piece Székelynóta (Székely Song), she wins the Rózsavölgyi Prize. In addition to the compulsory stylistic studies, a great many compositions flow from her pen for choir, piano (the latter predominating), as well as a few art songs. Even the titles of her piano works testify to her rich imagination (e.g. Ködben – északi kép (In the Fog – Northern Image), Fababák indulója (March of the Wooden Dolls), Dudástánc (Piper’s Dance), etc.). Her composition teacher is János Viski, a former student of Kodály. (At this time Kodály no longer teaches composition, and thus follows the development of Erzsébet Szőnyi’s career from a distance.)

After obtaining her secondary-school music teacher’s diploma, she officially begins teaching. (From 1945 she teaches at the Erzsébet Szilágyi Gymnasium and at a Budapest practice school.) She is appointed to the Academy of Music, where she is not only a solfège teacher but for one year also serves as Zoltán Kodály’s deputy in folk music classes. Her diploma work is completed: a symphonic movement in two variations – one in a tradition-following academic style, the other already reflecting her own individual voice.

Alongside teaching, she continues to compose, at this time mainly vocal works. As her gymnasium education had laid the foundations of a broad cultural literacy, she also possesses wide-ranging literary knowledge. She sets a great many poems to music: among others works by János Vajda, Dezső Kosztolányi, Árpád Tóth, Mihály Vörösmarty, Sándor Endrődi, and Endre Ady, as well as folk texts collected by János Kriza. Her first printed collection is published under the title Huszonegy énekes játék kórusra és gyermekzenekarra (Twenty-One Singing Games for Choir and Children’s Orchestra). An Ady poem (Új várak épültek – New Castles Have Been Built) also serves as the inspiration for a mixed-choir work with which she wins a competition in 1947. Shortly after the Hungarian edition, the English translation is published in London as well. This year marks a milestone in her life: she seeks an opportunity to further her knowledge in Paris on a French state scholarship.

The months spent at the Conservatoire lay the foundations of her international career. She attends primarily composition classes, but also visits the lessons of the renowned French composer Olivier Messiaen and the Europe-wide celebrated, versatile piano teacher Nadia Boulanger. She acquires an enormous body of knowledge. She engages not only with French Impressionism but also with the compositions of Stravinsky, still little known in Hungary at the time. With a view to gaining experience, she also immerses herself in the methodology of solfège teaching. At Kodály’s suggestion, she studies the entire system of French music education. Alongside all this, she finds time to continue her performing activity as well: she regularly appears at events of the Hungarian Institute, thus becoming known to Parisian audiences. These performances prove fruitful for her in several respects: she can demonstrate her skills, introduce Hungarian folk music to French listeners (singing songs by Bartók and Kodály with her own piano accompaniment), and not least, she builds professional and social connections.

Her creative drive remains unbroken: she composes numerous new works. Paris inspires her to set another Ady poem to music, Ádám, hol vagy? (Adam, Where Are You?). Her composition teacher, Tony Aubin – who is also an active conductor with the French Radio Orchestra – presents her orchestral work Parlando és Giusto (Parlando and Giusto) at one of the radio concerts. With her first Divertimento, she achieves great success, winning first prize in the Conservatoire’s composition competition. To enrich the evenings of the Hungarian Institute and broaden its repertoire, she writes Öt magyar népdal (Five Hungarian Folk Songs). The cycle consists of arrangements of well-known folk songs for violin and piano. Although it stands in direct continuity with Bartók’s harmonized folk songs, it cannot be confused with them. These five folk songs are outstanding examples of compositional mastery. They demand fundamentally superior technique from the performers, yet the individual movements are highly idiomatic for the instruments. She clothes the la-pentatonic tonality in her own distinctive harmonies (Kicsi madár… – Little Bird…). The folk song A bolhási kertek alatt… (Under the Gardens of Bolhás…), with its asymmetrical pulse, is treated in a playfully varied form, almost with the flair of a juggler. Among the diverse characters we also encounter csárdás – a type otherwise rare in Szőnyi’s oeuvre (Fehér fuszulykavirág… – White Bean Blossom…). The fourth folk song is a bagpipe song (Pista bácsi… – Uncle Pista…). In the final piece (Aki dudás akar lenni… – He Who Wants to Be a Piper…), the quartal mixture so characteristic of her style already makes its appearance. 

Almost the polar opposite of the folk songs is the eight-movement piano cycle Színek (Colors). Here the encounter between the folk-like melodic turns brought from Hungary and the newly acquired French stylistic elements is already clearly visible. In the opening movements, the unusual alternation of minor and major seconds generates a whole series of new scales. The impressionistic influence is already signaled by the title itself: the performer is required to “mix” eight basic colors.

The movement Pepita (Checkered) recalls the 5/8 and 7/8 meters and the stubborn ostinato of Mikrokozmosz, while the almost chugging motion and the occasionally displaced accents evoke the giusto characters so frequently encountered in Bartók. Szürke (Gray), despite its monotony, flashes up several shades of the basic color. Against the right hand’s octave figurations, symbolizing constancy, the left hand plays an atonal melody as a contrasting element.

The final movement is not accidently titled Fekete (Black), since its subtitle is Gyászinduló (Funeral March) – though not in the traditional sense. Even if it is not the customary dotted rhythm that recalls the given character, the procession of a funeral march can nonetheless be felt. The suite closes with a four-part, quasi-chorale of modern harmonic language.

For Erzsébet Szőnyi, the high point of the postgraduate year was the Conservatoire’s composition competition, in which, from among nineteen entries, her string-orchestra work Első Divertimento (First Divertimento) won first prize. In this award-winning orchestral composition, the composer employed an unusual instrumental combination: alongside the strings, piano, harp, snare drum, and timpani are included. This success could have laid the foundation for a French career, yet she chose instead to return home in the summer of 1948 in order to put her knowledge to use in Hungary.

Another change occurs in her life: she gets married. After this she conducts once more – presenting her latest prize-winning work at a gala concert of the Erkel Theatre – and with that brings her conducting career to an end. From this point on, the pedagogical way of life becomes her true vocation, which – even if not always bound to a single institution – continues to the present day. This marks the beginning of the period in which, together with Kodály Zoltán, she lays the foundations of, and then builds up, the Hungarian system of music education from kindergarten all the way to the Academy of Music. At the latter institution she works both with children in pre-college music training and with adults, while at the Szilágyi Erzsébet Gymnasium she directs the musical education of secondary-school students. Returning to her hometown, she is given the opportunity to put her own ideas and her experiences gained in France to use. She carries out nationwide professional supervision and for years travels regularly to the countryside. As a result of this intensive teaching activity, composition naturally recedes into the background. Only during the summer holidays does she find time to commit to paper the musical ideas accumulated during the academic year. Her creative output in this period is characterized by compositions written for young people, conceived with explicit pedagogical aims and intended primarily for children. In 1949 her one-act children’s ballet Kerti mese (Garden Tale) is completed, followed later by the stage work A tücsök és a hangya (The Cricket and the Ant). The diversity of genres continues to characterize her output: among the new works we find, for example, four-hand piano pieces (Kis kamarazene – Little Chamber Music), an oratorio (Babilon – Babylon), as well as a cappella and orchestral-accompanied choral works (Lepetye; Bartók Béla halálára – On the Death of Béla Bartók).

Her political stance is reflected in the fact that she never renounces her Catholic faith and does not join the Party even under strong pressure. Naturally, in the 1950s sacred works are pushed into the background, yet she does not serve the expectations of the regime. She does not compose rousing, movement songs, writing only a few choral pieces for pioneers (the socialist youth).

The period defined by a folk-song-like idiom comes to an end in 1951. Although she still occasionally draws on pentatonic elements, her harmonic language undergoes a radical transformation. Folk-music inspiration can still be sensed in Második Divertimentó (Second Divertimento), composed at this time, in which classical tonality in the traditional sense begins to dissolve. (This experimental sound world is already foreshadowed by the ballet Táncjelenet (Dance Scene), dated 1949.) Through smaller ballets a direct path leads to the large stage: she writes her first opera, the three-act Dalma. The composition, based on a drama by Jókai Mór, is performed at the Fészek Club with the composer at the piano. Although the work still reveals both classical formal elements (overture, recitatives, alternating arias and choruses) and traits of post-Romanticism, it lays the foundations for the new Hungarian operas of the 1960s. Four years later she continues the operatic path begun in 1953 with the one-act Firenzei tragédia (A Florentine Tragedy), whose libretto is based on Oscar Wilde’s drama of the same title, in the Hungarian translation by Kosztolányi Dezső. The work exemplifies how the composer stretches the framework of twentieth-century opera, breaking up the organic continuity of arias, choruses, and orchestral interludes. Dialogic recitatives alternate with short ariosos. This piece, rich in original ideas and built largely on the technique of “speech-song,” also won the approval of the Kodály couple. The stage work was presented with great success in Copenhagen, then on several German stages, as well as in Budapest.

Meanwhile she writes her handbook A zenei írás-olvasás módszertana – Kezdettől a felsőfokig (The Methodology of Musical Literacy – From the Beginning to the Advanced Level), later followed by eight practice booklets, and wins first prize at the Viotti Competition in Vercelli, Italy. One of her favoured instruments comes into focus with the composition of Hat orgonadarab (Six Organ Pieces), followed by the Orgonaverseny (Organ Concerto, 1958). The latter is written in a traditional three-movement form. Built on folk-music elements, it features turns reminiscent of Baroque and Romantic styles and unexpected modulations within an essentially tonal concerto. The traditional cadenzas are left to the performer’s imagination and improvisational skill.

From what has been outlined so far, it clearly follows that politically she was classified in the “tolerated” category, yet her work was nevertheless recognized with the Erkel Prize in 1959.

With the aim of ensuring that young people engage in active music-making from the very beginning, she composed a stage work to a libretto by Edit Kováts entitled A makrancos királylány (The Shrewish Princess). The premiere took place in 1955. The children’s opera owes its many successful performances to the work’s lightness and ease of performance. Its popularity is demonstrated not only by the long series of domestic and international productions, but also by the fact that the Hungarian State Opera included it in its repertoire in the spring of 2017.

In 1960 she was appointed head of the department for secondary-school singing teachers and choir conductors, a position she held for two decades. This appointment did not constitute a fundamental change in her life, as she had already been the foremost ambassador of the Kodály method as a teacher. What did change, however, was that pedagogy became a vocation and a way of life for her: her commitment to education deepened even further, both at home and abroad, and the world opened up before her. She gave lectures and, through her expanding international network, received an ever-growing number of invitations. Through her work, the world came to know Hungarian music education from its very beginnings through to the highest levels.

At first she was invited primarily to socialist countries – the GDR, Romania, and the Soviet Union. From the 1960s onward, cities beyond the Iron Curtain gradually became accessible to her – Vienna, Tokyo, Bonn, Berlin, several locations in the United States, Oslo, Montreal, Paris, Dijon, Brussels, London, Sydney, Tunis, Lausanne, Jerusalem, among others. She became familiar with the international musical world and gained increasing recognition.

In 1964 she succeeded in bringing the conference of ISME (International Society for Music Education), the leading professional forum of the global music education community, to Hungary. This Budapest event created broad opportunities for presenting Hungarian music education to the world. She was elected to the governing body and remained a member of the organization’s leadership for ten years. The conference had not only international but also cultural-political significance. The success of the ISME meeting is demonstrated by the fact that from this point onward Hungary became one of the leading powers in music education. Teachers, choir conductors, and composers from numerous countries arrived to study the Hungarian concept of music pedagogy based on Kodály’s principles, which had by then become almost a philosophy: “Let music belong to everyone!” Shorter and longer professional training courses were accompanied by classroom observations in music-focused primary schools and at the Academy of Music. Foreign visitors were thus able to experience in practice the effectiveness of the method. In 1967 the Esztergom Summer University was launched, of which she remained an active organizer and lecturer for nearly four decades.

After Kodály’s death, she set herself the goal of holding together the Hungarian musical community. With her assistance, the Hungarian Music Education Conference for music teachers was organized in Győr. It was at this meeting that the idea first emerged which later led to the establishment of the Hungarian Kodály Society. A few years later, at the initiative of Erzsébet Szőnyi, the International Kodály Society was successfully founded in Kecskemét. To this day, both organizations continue to cultivate and sustain the Kodály tradition with great success.

Her personality and expertise have become an ever-stronger attraction for the profession worldwide, and she increasingly emerged as an advocate of Hungarian music education built on the Kodály concept. She served as an international ambassador on five continents, as head of department, held senior positions in several organizations, and was a member of the university council of the Academy of Music.

Despite her many responsibilities, she continued to devote time to composition. She wrote mainly vocal works, as well as chamber pieces for young performers. The series of stage works continued: the premiere of A didergő király (The Shivering King) was followed by A kis rongyos (The Little Ragged One), a hybrid of pantomime and song play, and Képzelt beteg (The Imaginary Invalid), written for adult audiences, based on Molière’s comedy with verses by Gyula Illyés (in his adaptation and translation). She also turned toward the musical genre: under the title Száz cifra ködmön (A Hundred Ornate Sheepskin Coats), she composed a one-act musical play inspired by an idea by Kálmán Mikszáth. After a brief pause, the sequence of stage works was continued with the children’s operas Az aranyszárnyú méhecske (The Golden-Winged Little Bee) and Az igazmondó juhász (The Truth-Telling Shepherd). She was also well acquainted with contemporary Hungarian literature: from András Sütő’s Vidám sirató egy bolyongó porszemért (A Cheerful Lament for a Wandering Speck of Dust) she created a musical play with verse insertions by Sándor Weöres. This was followed by Adáshiba (Transmission Error), a musical setting of Károly Szakonyi’s drama.

The 1970s and 1980s were particularly productive decades in her life. Nearly a quarter of her more than one hundred choral works were composed during this period, including motets, oratorios and cantatas with orchestral accompaniment, and even a madrigal opera. In 1970, her cantata based on poems by Attila József was premiered, followed in 1974 by a cantata set to verses by Miklós Radnóti. Both works were written for mixed choir, orchestra, and soloists – the former for soprano, the latter for soprano, tenor, and bass. The year 1975 saw the composition of the Szent Erzsébet mise (Saint Elizabeth Mass), a monophonic setting with organ accompaniment, already in the Hungarian language. The movements of the Catholic liturgy are easily singable for the congregation, with simple melodies comparable to traditional congregational church songs.

Extensive travel brought not only the acquisition of experience but also left a clear imprint on her compositions. Primarily for pedagogical purposes, she wrote numerous bicinia based on Japanese, American, Canadian, Australian, French, and Romanian folk songs. Within her oeuvre, concertos are relatively few in number. Following the organ concerto, which occupies a prominent place, she composed a concertino for piano in 1980 entitled Három ötlet négy tételben (Three Ideas in Four Movements). In this period, it was her only orchestral work not written specifically for young performers.

In 1981 she retired from teaching at the Academy of Music, which left her with more time for writing, composition, and public activity. She assumed presidential roles at the head of musical societies (the Bárdos Society and the Kodály Society) and served on the board of trustees of the first foundation-based music school established after the political transition. Together with fellow artists, she contributed significantly to the founding of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, of which she is a full member.

She writes a great deal: studies, articles, and music. Her imagination is inexhaustible. She is repeatedly inspired by the spirit of earlier eras. Her stylized dances and suite movements, which recur across several periods of her career, often recall Respighi (for example, Francia szvit (French Suite) for viola and piano from 1983).

From the 1980s onward, church music once again plays an increasingly significant role in her oeuvre. In June 1984, in the presence of Cardinal László Lékai, Archbishop of Esztergom, her biblically inspired, organ-accompanied choral work Motetta a lélekről (Motet on the Soul) was premiered with great success. The piece was composed for the consecration of the Holy Trinity Church in Óbuda. The motet sets verses 6–12 from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Its structure recalls the Baroque style (for example, it includes a four-part chorale), and the upward-striving composition is brought to a close by a hymn-like coda.

Alongside the many choral works from this period, we also find an oratorio, Béla király a Bükkben (King Béla in the Bükk Mountains), chamber music (for example Jeruzsálemi képek [Jerusalem Images] for two pianos), and the madrigal opera Elfrida, composed on the basis of the work of the same title by Arany László. She invites her audience on a musical journey with Zenetörténeti séta kilenc tételben (A Walk through Music History in Nine Movements), a composition that presents the most important styles across several historical periods.

Among her most important compositions of the 1990s are three song cycles (in French, English, and German), as well as three quintets. It is unusual in the musical repertoire for a composer to expand a string quartet with organ or with harp. Only the third work, the piano quintet, employs a conventional instrumental combination. 

 Her ideas are inexhaustible. In 1998 she became acquainted with Attila Szepesi’s Sárkányfogak (Dragon’s Teeth) poetry collection, illustrated by Pál Gerzson. These poems inspired her to create a new genre: combining literature with the visual arts and music. She set 52 poems to music, conceived so that they can be performed at the piano with spoken recitation and projection simultaneously, in freely chosen selections and order. Erzsébet Szőnyi is also a great master of small forms. These four-line poems are striking examples of this mastery – each of them essentially portraying a distinct character.

Around the turn of the millennium she continues to compose numerous sacred choral works (Missa misericordiae, Veni Creator Spiritus, as well as three Mass movements, etc.). In 2009, at the celebratory event held at the Liszt Academy of Music for her 85th birthday, her large-scale cantata Néhány gondolat a könyvtárban (Some Thoughts in the Library) is performed for the first time, composed to Mihály Vörösmarty’s poem Gondolatok a könyvtárban (Thoughts in the Library) for soprano and baritone soloists, chamber orchestra, and mixed choir. A few years later, in 2011, her organ-accompanied Requiem, written in memory of her family members, receives its premiere.

Hungarian and world literature continue to occupy a central place in her oeuvre to this day. Among the poets she set to music, a particular curiosity is a sonnet by Dante, which she composed for mixed choir with piano accompaniment. Her creative drive remains unbroken, as evidenced by the fact that even beyond the age of ninety she continues to compose. Thus, in 2015 she set to music Nagy Gáspár’s Hótalan a hegyek inge (Snowless Is the Mountains’ Coat) and Pilinszky János’s Harmadnapon (On the Third Day). In 2016 she again composed for children’s choir, this time to poems by Szepesi Attila, with accompaniment that can also be performed by children themselves (for various instruments – drum, citera, piano, etc.).

Szőnyi Erzsébet’s life’s work has been marked by a long series of distinctions, among which the most important is the Kossuth Prize (2006); in addition, in 2014 she was awarded the title Artist of the Nation.

Finally, a quotation that remains актуális today: “If a performer struggles with the solution of a task, they may confidently turn for help to the most authentic person, Erzsébet Szőnyi, who to this day is not only a composer but also a born pedagogue! She readily stands at everyone’s disposal: SHE TEACHES! She provides guidance not only to her performers, but also to her audiences.”¹

The crowning achievement of Erzsébet Szőnyi’s pedagogical and public activity is that the Kodály Method was added to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016. A characteristic expression of her life philosophy may be found in the following quotation by Zoltán Kodály, from Volume II of Visszatekintés, in the essay titled Szentirmaytól Bartókig (from Szentirmay to Bartók ): “After all, one can live without music as well. There is a road even through the desert. But we, who strive to place the key to good music into the hands of every child, together with the talisman against bad music, want them not to walk the course of their lives as if crossing a desert, but through flowering gardens.”

[2016]

Literature:

Erzsébet Szőnyi, Öt kontinensen a zene szolgálatában [In the Service of Music on Five Continents], Gondolat, 1979.

Jerry L. Jaccard, A zene nagykövete Szőnyi Erzsébet [The Ambassador of Music Erzsébet Szőnyi], Nap Kiadó, 2016.

Csilla Pintér, Szőnyi Erzsébet, Magyar Zeneszerzők sorozat [Erzsébet Szőnyi, Hungarian Composers series], Mágus Kiadó, 2014.