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Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choir in Hungary - Quotes

Folk song is a variation of the mother tongue.

     
Zoltán Kodály at the piano [1] - Children's Choir in Hungary 2012: Bárdos Lajos - Édesanyámhoz (Lajos Bárdos - To My Mother) [2] -
Hungarian Handicrafts Embroidery [3]

presented by Michael Palomino (2025 - translation with Deepl 2025)

from the notes of the diploma thesis "The Music Pedagogical Conception of Zoltan Kodály"
(German: "Die musikpädagogische Konzeption Zoltan Kodálys" )

by violist Michael Schulz (since 1999: Michael Palomino) - handed over to Prof. Dr. Anselm Ernst - as a student at High Music School of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) studying with the violist professors Mr. Ulrich Koch and Mr. Gündel, 30 March 1987

Translation with Deepl.

Summary

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) studied composition in Budapest and discovered that the Hungarian population was colonized by German classical music. In Hungary, German classical music and gypsy music were considered "Hungarian" being composed in major and minor, although Hungarian folk songs which were based on the pentaton did not be present at all. He went to the countryside and researched Hungarian folk music, where classical "art music" had not reached yet. From the 1930s onwards, he appealed to the Hungarian Ministry of Culture to integrate Hungarian folk music into the school system, and this project finally succeeded in the 1950s. Here are quotes from his principles and from his appeals to make music from kindergarten to the high youth age: children's choir and youth choir.


1. Kodály defining real and fake folk music in Hungary

Kodály defines "song literature without blood"

from: Zoltan Kodály: The First Opera of Béla Bartók (German: Die erste Oper Béla Bartóks - 1918) - (74)
"The first musical attempts of the 40s of the last century [in 1840 about] regarded the anemic song literature and gypsy music as immediate predecessors and followed them. What has flowed into the development here and there from below, from the oldest layers, leads to Hungarian music, which has gained new momentum, and which has taken up the broken thread of tradition again at this older and more original point. This semi-dilettante literature (pseudo-folk music), which is not completely worthless, but only superficially Hungarian, had to be excluded from the realm of higher art [...]

Kodály says: The trivial songs of 1850 have replaced real folk music in Hungary

from: Zoltán Kodály: Resurrection of the Folk Song (German: Auferstehung des Volksliedes - 1918) - (2)
"For a long time, this literature had claimed the name 'folk song and unadulterated Hungarian music', it had an effect on the lowest strata of the people and connected town and village. It flourished and perished with the folk play, but continued to live in the village. As a result, the old and original treasure trove of popuar folk songs was suppressed, which was only gradually brought to the surface of its true wealth through the more recent research."

from: Zoltán Kodály: The Path of Hungarian Choral Singing (German: Der Weg des ungarischen Chorgesangs - 1935) - (10)
"What are the characteristics of these songs from 1850? Two opposites, one is the joyful celebration, the other a somewhat sad, morbid nostalgia - a kind of aimless death wish - in short "crying merriment".


2. The classical music of the “elite” (from Bach to Brahms) without folk song - school choirs as a basis

Classical music (“art music”) has partially integrated folk songs - but some areas regions of the country remained without “art music” for a long time

from: Zoltán Kodály: The Folk Song in Russian and Hungarian Art Music (German: Das Volkslied in der russischen und ungarischen Kunstmusik - 1946) - 42 (38)
“At first the literary and linguistic significance of folk poetry was recognized. However, interest in music only awoke one or two generations later and did not have the same significance in every country. In Germany, France and Italy, where musical culture had been flourishing for a long time and a large musical literature had developed, the folk song had already merged with art music in the previous centuries or at least fertilized one of its genres. In these countries, interest in the folk song awoke at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, but initially had no influence on art music.
In some countries, however, where art music had not existed for long, the folk song had a very strong influence on the development of style.”

The “nobility” has said goodbye to the folk song and the “nobles” no longer sing (!)

from: Hungarian folk music (German: Die ungarische Volksmusik - 1925) - copy p. 23,24,25,26 27,28,29,30,31
“Hungarian folk music is much more. Firstly, it is not a “class art”. Today it only exists among the peasantry, but the whole of Hungary has something to do with it. For thousands of years, many streams have flowed into it like a large reservoir. There is no layer of the Hungarian people that has not left a trace of at least one single moment of experience in it. That is why it is the spiritual reflection of Hungarianness [...] The Hungarian people once - not so long ago - formed an undivided unit. Even the pluralization of society has not led to cultural separation. Only 300 years ago, the same song was still being sung in our castle and hut. Since then, the castle has been destroyed; its inhabitants have become alien or unfaithful to the songs. He still keeps his old treasures, his splendid clothes and weapons. But he has stopped singing. The hut has remained faithful, it has kept the more valuable part of the treasure: the ancient furniture of the soul. The peoples of the West still possess rich collections of written and printed melodies dating back to the 13th century. In our country, folk tradition must also catch up with this.”

[Addendum: Austria-Hungary: Hungarian folk songs only sing the poor
The situation was like this: because of the Austrian colonization with "classical" music and with German as the language of communication in Austria-Hungary until 1918, the nobility in Hungary no longer had the courage to sing Hungarian folk songs. One can assume that the following comparison also counted: Hungarian folk song = extreme poverty, only the "poor" sing them].

One could create a bridge between “art music” and the folk song

ibid.: Hungarian folk music (German: Die ungarische Volksmusik - 1925) - copy p.32
“One side are the songs of Nogaj Tatar, of the Vojtjak, of the Tcheremiss, the other side are by Bach and Palestrina. Will we ever be able to connect the two worlds? Will we ever succeed in building a bridge between the cultures of Europe and Asia, instead of being driven back and forth between the two sides like a ferry? That would be enough of a task for the next thousand years.”

Hungary had only a small audience for “art music” in the 1930s

from: Zoltan Kodály: The Musical Mission at Home ( German: Die musikalische Mission im Inland - 1934) - 100 (9)
“The Academy of Music educated excellent musicians for abroad. Here, at home, there was no audience for them, because no one had paved the way to higher music for the youth and the masses.”

Hungary 1945: The state school does not teach children singing or art - something is missing in the school system for “national education”

from: Interview in Béla Balázs' weekly newspaper (1945) - 101 (33)
[Kodály said in his summary in 1945 that “... it was precisely the school that had deterred the broad masses of the people from art. And life had not been able to win them over to art either...”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Musical mass education (German: Musikalische Breitenbildung - 1945) - 102 (31)
“We can only speak of national education when broad sections of the population enjoy the blessing of music and take pleasure in it.”


Hungary 1934: Everyone should learn to understand “art music” - music is a “common good” - music is for everyone

from: Zoltán Kodály: Musical Mission at Home (German: Musikalische Mission im Inland - 1934) - 103 (9)
“What we have to do, in a word, is education. But a mutual one. The masses must be brought closer to art music.”

ibid: Zoltán Kodály: Musical Mission at Home (German: Musikalische Mission im Inland - 1934) - 104 (9)
“... The path to this process of rapprochement is choral singing, but [in Hungary which was decolonized in 1918 only] it can only fulfill its task when it is reborn.”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Éneklö Ifjúság (1941)
“This magazine should lead the youth out of musical illiteracy”.

ibid.: Dec. [1941?]
“We must free the foundation of Hungarian musical consciousness from the ruins of Hungarian indifference, of outdated and false musical education ... The “Singing Youth” movement represents neither class nor stratum interests. Music is a common good!”


3. School systems should train children in good music

The school trains children in the arts

from: Zoltán Kodály: Popularization of serious music (German: Popularisierung der E-Musik - 1946) - 119 (41)
“The taste of adults can hardly be changed, but good taste, trained early enough, can hardly be spoiled later.”

from: Reflections on the Draft Curriculum for Music (German: Reflexionen über den Lehrplanentwurf für Musik - 1952) - 120 (52)
“It was clear that something had to be done to increase the desire for more and better music in the country. In the search for where the work should and could begin, I turned to younger and younger age groups [...] The education of the masses must begin in school, even in kindergarten.”

from. Zoltán Kodály: Éneklö Ifjúsig (1941) - 121 (20)
“The school as an educational system covers all children at the age when they are most receptive to music and can be easily introduced to systematic work.”

Kodály defines the “complete human being” who understands the arts - and "torso"

from: Zoltán Kodály: On the teaching of music at secondary school level (German: Zum Musikunterricht der Sekundarstufe - 1953) - 122 (57)
“Every citizen has the right to expect that the state school he pays for will lead his child towards a general and perfect education and help his physical and mental abilities to develop. Is a complete man if he is incapable of appreciating the arts? No, he is a torso, his life is empty, despite material abundance.”

[Supplement: "complete man", really?
Here Kodály underestimates the natural sciences and Mother Earth, because they have always survived well even without "art music". And the "artists" do not understand a large part of the natural sciences and Mother Earth. All in all, Kodály shares the racism of Rudolf Steiner with the word "full human being"].

Music in education is important

from: Zoltán Kodály: Reflections on the Draft Curriculum (German: Reflexionen über den Lehrplanentwurf - 1952) - 124 (52)
“Music is an indispensable part of human education and not a luxury item. There is no fulfilled life without music.”

[Wrong: The most important elements in life are good parents and a constructive family - and not the music. Because a good family with harmony and without overload gives the same feeling as good music will give: harmony. Kodály lacks here sociology and psychology].

Education in ancient Greece had music as the central “muse” for training the mind

from: Zoltán Kodály: Gentlemen of the Ministry of Culture: Let the Children Sing (Ihr Herren vom Kulturministerium: Lasst doch die Kinder singen - 1956) - 126 (63)
“Until now, the Greeks were the most successful in the harmonious cultivation of mind and body in education. Music was given the central role in it.”

Note: “Music [Greek: musike technee ‘art of the muses’], originally among the ancient Greeks the art of the muses; encompassed all arts that formed the mind and spirit. Only since the Christian [Jesus fantasy] era it is called the art of sound.”

Music should be part of normal education

from: Zoltán Kodály: Musical Life in a Provincial Town (1937) - 153 (16)
“It is obvious to all of us that the education of the elite and the education of the masses must form an organic unity that cannot be separated from each other. The result will be of lasting value if both are in balance. In order to achieve this balance, music education must be promoted, or rather redesigned - this is our most important activity.”

Making music at school in a group promotes intellectual and social life at school

from: Zoltán Kodály:  Gentlemen of the Ministry of Culture: Let the children sing (Ihr Herren vom Kulturministerium: Lasst doch die Kinder singen - 1956) - 156 (63)
“In music lessons we don't just learn music. Singing promotes concentration, attention, improves the psychosomatic disposition, educates for work, brings forces to life in people, gives courage, frees them from inhibitions, educates for community, moves the whole person, not just partially, and makes school more attractive. Music lessons promote the musicality present in every person, thus laying the foundation for musical education and improving their quality of life.”

Music is like spiritual food - for a fulfilled life

from: Zoltán Kodály: Music in Kindergarten (German: Musik im Kindergarten - 1941) - 158 (21)
“... even the three-year-old is a human being. The child should be taken seriously ... Music is food and cannot be replaced by anything else. There is no such thing as a life fulfilled in its entirety without music. The purpose of music is the development of the human being.”

The mediation of music: the children's choir - the men's choir - and bad choir leaders

from. Zoltán Kodály: Musical Life in a Provincial Town ( German: Musikleben einer Provinzstadt - 1937) - 169 (16)
“The best way to do this is choral singing. That would be all right, we have that in every village, one could say. Well, that doesn't mean that these choirs have even a minimum artistic level, simply because the repertoire is inartistic and poor. The German male choir - that is, what we have basically adopted - is more of a social gathering than an institution of art. It cannot grow out of its limitations simply because of its means. That's why the names of the great masters are hardly to be found in the catalog of the male choral repertoire.”

A healthy social life comes from music

from: Zoltán Kodály: Music in the Kindergarten (German: Musik im Kindergarten - 1941) - 174 (21)
“If we really want to bring new life into our country - and who wouldn't want that - we must also be reborn through music.”


4. Hungary must develop its own music education

Not adopt everything from Germany, it doesn't fit

from: Zoltán Kodály: Bicinia Hungarica, afterword to the first issue (1937) - 191 (15)
“Those who still believe today that we can only learn from the West through the German Felter [?] should realize that the Germans have already adapted the English system for the second time (Hundsegger and Jöde) and that it is widespread in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia despite some shortcomings of the adaptation ... Why do we have to take everything second-hand and, moreover, adapted to the taste of a nation that differs more from us in feeling and way of thinking than any other European people? ... Let us create from the original sources. We should never become the intellectual colony of a country, but adopt what fits for us.”

The education of the population - not only gypsy music is Hungarian

from: P.J. Koppa: Poor Hungarian Musical Culture - 193 (292)
“The Hungarian public must be pulled out of its primitive state of musical comprehension. The average Hungarian today can neither comprehend nor follow a musical structure more complex than a song. Would that also be a national characteristic? No, it is merely musical ignorance, a musical fallow field that the school is called upon to cultivate.
In order for the national spirit to express itself in higher art forms, it is necessary to raise the educational level of the entire nation.
Hungarians can then no longer be deterred from classical music by this or that different color and musical fashion. The misconception that only light music [gypsy music] can be Hungarian will disappear; then there will no longer be the “either/or” mentality between Hungarian and classical music.”

Secondary school without music is a dead school - music is a “source of spiritual strength”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Musical Mission at Home (German: Musikalische Mission im Inland - 1934) - 195 (9)
“Our most important activity concerns the school. What image does the average Hungarian have of music, what has he learned about it? He has spent 16 years at school without ever having encountered it [music]. In primary school, its trace can only just be discovered, but the curriculum of our secondary school speaks openly of the pedagogical uselessness of music: it is not needed. How is the future society supposed to gain a better understanding and appreciation of music, how is it supposed to perceive music as vital if it is not confronted with it at the most sensitive stage of its life? Music can no longer be considered a private pleasure, but a source of spiritual force, as every cultural nation has long recognized. Every Hungarian child should participate in it!”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Bicinia Hungarica, afterword to the 1st issue (1934) - 200 (15)
“Theoretical considerations are unnecessary ... Intuitive feeling, experience (practice) are more likely to lead to music than a I-am-better-interpretation.”


5. The folk song in kindergarten

Kindergarten children learn through play

from: Zoltán Kodály: Music in kindergarten (German: Musik im Kindergarten - 1941) - 202 (21)
“But it must begin in kindergarten, because there the child learns through play everything for which it is too late in elementary school.”

Hungary must overcome the Austro-German, colonial music culture with German children songs

from: Zoltán Kodály: Music in Kindergarten (Musik im Kindergarten - 1941) - 202 (21)
“The biggest mistake of our culture is that it was built from the top down. When our culture was able to develop after a hundred years of national oppression [Austria-Hungary obliged the populations that German was the language of communication], we wanted to make up for the omissions far too hastily. Culture is the result of gradual growth. It is not possible to speed it up or change the order of development. First of all, we built the decorative towers, and only when we realized that the whole structure was starting to sway did we begin to erect the supporting walls. The foundations still have to be built. This situation is especially true in music culture.”

Kindergarten: The education of children between 3 and 7 years old is important

from: Zoltan Kodály: Music in Kindergarten (German: Musik im Kindergarten - 1941) - 205 (21)
"The kindergarten is of particular importance since the children are only allowed to attend primary school from the age of 6. [...] Today's psychology convincingly proves that the age of 3-7 years is much more important for education than the years after. What is spoiled or neglected at this age cannot be made up for or made up for later. In these years, the fate of man is decided almost for his whole life. If the soul lies fallow until about the seventh year, it will also prove unfruitful for later sowing."

Music and singing between the ages of 3 and 7

from: Zoltan Kodály: Interview in "Youth" (German: "Jugend” - 1941) - 206 (20) - p.62, 63, 64, 65
“[...] I cannot emphasize often enough that it is a wrong educational policy to begin music lessons and education in the love of music only in middle school. The teacher should use the first expressions of thought, the dawn of the mind, for the early innervation of musical elements, so musical education must begin in kindergarten and the training of the musical ear must be carried out. Musical education between the ages of 3 and 7 is extremely important at the most important stage in the development of the child's mind and soul [...].

Musical education cannot be compared with money. The acquisition of musical knowledge does not necessarily have to be linked to instrumental ability. In fact, the basis of a deeper musical education is exclusively singing. Everyone has a voice. It is free and can be the most beautiful instrument if we want it to be. Training this instrument is the first duty of young people, because it leads them to the gates of the higher musical world.”


6. Quotes from “Children's Choirs” (German: "Kinderchöre" - 1929)
School system must be completed with music - the audience of tomorrow - integrate Hungarian folk music - promote children's choirs - compositions for children's choirs are missing - equal pay for music teachers - music teachers should inspire children between 6 and 16 for music

Add music to the curriculum - there are many “musical illiterates” - there is a lot of “worthless music”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 96 (7)
“If we take a look at the Hungarian curricula, we see that their authors are far removed from the Greek ideal of education, which gave music a central position. This is the reason why we have to maintain music institutions with considerable state funding to meet the higher demands of a small minority. Millions, however, remain musically illiterate, free prey for worthless music ... How can we understand a foreign culture if we don't even know our own? ... Of course, vocal music should be taught in all schools, as intensively as the mother tongue.”

[Supplement: Singing for health
Kodály says clearly: folk songs are a variant of the mother tongue. And it's important to know: singing also developes the lungs and coordinates breathing. Stuttering children, for example, are singing without stuttering. But Kodály does not realize that "high", "classical music" provokes a false pride in the "elite" and in the masses, so that the masses can be manipulated against each other with wars within the social stratas - and between countries. The warning against musical madness for wars is missing with Kodály].

Kodály invents a "nobler music" - children between the ages of 6 and 16 are to be "permeated by great music"

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 114 (7)
"What would have to be done? In schools, singing and music should be taught in such a way that they do not mean torture but joy for the pupil and make him feel a longing for nobler music all his life. The problem should not be approached from the conceptual, rational side. One should not see in music the system of algebraic signs, a cipher of a language indifferent to the child. Their path is to be paved by direct feeling. If the child at the most accessible age, between six and sixteen years of age, is not penetrated by the invigorating current of great music, it will hardly be receptive to it later on. Often you can't leave an experience to chance. It is the duty of the school to provide the child with this experience. I'm not suggesting that the school is able to offer that these days. But I think it goes without saying that the framework conditions will change.

The elementary school educates children in music - who later become the audience in the opera house - “only the best is good enough for children”

from Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 152 (7)
“The task of systematically developing music education is the responsibility of the state ... The state maintains opera houses and concert halls for nothing if they are not attended by anyone. We should educate an audience that perceives art music [“classical music”] as a necessity of life. The Hungarian public must be brought out of its musical apathy, but this can only be started at school.”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 185 (7)
“What is sung in schools today has hardly anything to do with art or quality. The way the children are singing, however, remains far below the level of dilettantism ... A child brought up in this way will usually want nothing to do with music as art for the rest of its life. At best, they will join a singing club where they will find the same school songs, only in a version for adults.”

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 197 (7)
“Let us put an end to the pedagogical superstition that a diluted substitute of art would be good enough as teaching material. It's just true art that is no better understood but by children with their feelings being steered by it's instincts. In every great artist the child has remained living ...
Only true artistic values, only the best is just good enough for children, everything else is harmful to them.”

German colonial music and shallow gypsy music are dominating Hungary - Hungarians reject their own Hungarian folk music - “musical infantilism” in the Hungarian school system

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 199 (7)
The little Hungarian on Tisza River may think to himself that this is music of the upper class, where the Hungarian word with it's declamagion is fighting his nature as a borrowed suit. In this situation, he learns to reject the melody of the Hungarian folk song, because - also when in the folk song the words are breathing freely, he just thinks that this would be part of all-day-life and of a farmer's life. As he is tought in school only the surface and garbage part of the origin folk music - when so -, he is honoring the better music, the foreign music. But with this mentality, he is not satisfied with this cultural facade without content. So he is loosing his belief to a better music and remains in a musical infantilism for his whole life.

The school system is teaching music in a bad way teaching only the foreign music and from the Hungarian music only the minor part of it, so the school system is cutting the way to a musical sensitization. So it's a duty in the name of the good taste and in the name of Hungarism to fight against the school program of today, and also the big part of monophonic vocal works must be rejected.

Some schoolbook authors think that Hungarian children are idiots. They are tortured with rhymes and ditties that any child could improvise, even better if they were allowed to do that freely.

Composers writing for children's choirs are missing - mental and physical training through children's choirs

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (Kinderchöre - 1929) - 199 (7) (continued):
From abroad, only masterpieces! There are enough to have. But the new Hungarian music literature is waiting for Hungarian composers. If Ferenc Erkel had only composed a few small choral pieces for children, his operas would now have more audience. No one is too big to write for the little ones. On the contrary, one should strive to be worthy of this task. What is needed are original works that are worked out in text, melody and atmosphere for the child's mind and voice...

Music lessons today are the Cinderella of school subjects. Just strum! Because it is fetched from the prince, the shoes only fit to her. In no subject is the child more mentally and physically developed than in music.”

Music teachers in Hungary are undervalued and almost without pay (as of 1929)

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kincerchöre - 1929) - 201 (7)
“The efficiency of music teaching depends on the teacher. The qualification required of today's secondary school or grammar school teacher in music is at such a low level that, if he does not do something of his own ability, he cannot even manage the program in our curricula ...
It is much more important who teaches music in Kisvárda [Hung: "Little Village"] than who is the general director of the State Opera. A bad opera director fails, but a bad teacher kills the love of music in 30 age groups during 30 years.
The status of the future music teacher must be equal to that of other teachers. In vain we try to advise the musical, educated youth in this profession, in vain we try to make them realize that there is no more sublime and beautiful profession than the education of the people. They inquire what a teacher earns and for the time being prefer to play the piano in a movie theater because they cannot educate the people with an empty stomach.”

Getting the child between the ages of 6 and 16 excited about music - music teachers should inspire and be enthusiastic themselves

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 237 (7)
Music is a rich source of spiritual enrichment. It must be made accessible to many... Music should not be approached from the conceptual-rational side ... Their path is to be paved by direct feeling. If the child at the most accessible age, between 6 and 16 years of age, is not penetrated by the living stream of great music, it will hardly be receptive to it later on. Often you can't leave an experience to chance; it is the duty of the school to provide the child with this experience.

from: Zoltán Kodály: Children's Choirs (German: Kinderchöre - 1929) - 286 (7)
"We need a music teacher who does not immediately throw the mortar trowel into the box at noon after the twelfth stroke of the bell, but we need one who feels a little extra work as a spiritual need, which he is not obliged to do by the authorities, but which gives his work spice, soul and meaning."

Photo sources
[1] Zoltán Kodály at the piano: https://vk.com/wall-151003824_8
[2] Children's Choir in Hungary 2012: Bárdos Lajos - Édesanyámhoz (Lajos Bárdos - To My Mother): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rVLSoFqsCs
[3] Hungarian handicrafts: embroidery: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/310115124345147710/

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