The Far East

Eastern Europe / Hungary

Janacek (1854 - 1928)

One of the only famous Czheck composers, Janacek was as all of the Eastern European composers are: folky. He used folk songs in much of his music. Like I said, there isn't too much to say about him - he only has a few famous pieces for the piano, the Sonata (1905) titled "1. X 1905," refering to a date (October 1st, 1905), when some worker was violently killed, and the piece is tribute to him. Its a very somber work, the two movements are titled "foreboding" and "death." The only other significant piece for piano by Janacek is "In the Mists (1912)," which has four movements. Again another depressing work - he wrote it during times of hardship loss, including the recent death of his daughter. The piece is as you might expect fomr the title - very impressionistic.


Dohnanyi (1877 - 1960)

Really the only reason we do Dohnanyi is because he taught at our very own Florida State University. He was Hungarian and studied at the Budapest (Liszt) Accademy, tought piano in Berlin, and eventually moved to the US, where he taught at FSU for 10 years. Other than that, there are really only a couple of contributions into the piano repetoire. The first big one is the 51 exersices, which are great! they are aimed at finger independence and most involve holding some keys with some fingers while lifeing and playing others. The only other significant work is the "Variatoins on a Nursery Song" for piano and orchestra. The piece is meant to be humerous and features lush, dramatic orchestral parts, followed by the pianist playing "twinkle twinlke little star."


Zoltan Kodaly (1882 - 1967)

He's really not that important in the big scheme of things. All that needs to be known of him is thta he was the Bartok apprentice, the Robin. I don't believe he wrote anything significant for the piano. I just discoverd that his first name is Zoltan, which is pretty awesome. Maybe that's why were mentionining him. He wrote a famous dissertation on Hungarian folk music at the Budapest Accademy.