Zoltán Kodály's op. 1, Énekszó (Singing), this series of songs written on Hungarian folk poetry, first appeared in 1921 at Rózsavölgyi Publishing House. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first edition, a facsimile edition of the work and a new edition with Hungarian and English texts has been published, with great help of Mrs. Kodály née Sarolta Péczely.

The series of songs written between 1907 and 1909 simultaneously reflects the composer's first encounter with Hungarian folk songs and Debussy's mélodies. Kodály, who later composed numerous arrangements of folk songs for both solo voice and choir, uses only the texts of folk lyrics in these songs, the melodic world, although reminiscent of Hungarian folk songs in several ways, stems from his own melodic invention. And in piano accompaniments, you can feel the experimental spirit and atmosphere-creating power of the young composer at the same time. As Bence Szabolcsi later wrote: This virtually magic quality bestows scores of very simple and yet utterly intense means o elementary expression upon the composer. But it is primarily the determining pictorialness of the musical expression that helps Kodály to fully reveal this quality.

The 16 songs are mainly love-themed, and it is suspected that Kodály wrote them to his first wife, Emma Sándor, whom he married in 1910, during his courtship. The lyrics of the last song highlighted as the motto of the series reveal this: I plucked the fairest flowers / From the woods and forests / And I made a nosegay / For my true love’s pleasure.

The new publications will be presented at a festive concert held on December 16, 2021, on the 139th anniversary of the birth of Zoltán Kodály, at the Budapest Academy of Music, where some of the songs will also be performed.

Listen to Énekszó!

Photo: Budapest Music Academy