Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist and music educator, born in Kecskemét. From 1905 he collected folk songs in Hungarian villages on phonograph cylinders, and he introduced Béla Bartók to the methods of this work. His choral and orchestral music draws on that material, and his ideas on teaching through singing became known as the Kodály method. Kodály studied composition in Budapest with Hans von Koessler and took lessons with Charles-Marie Widor in Paris. His 1906 thesis dealt with the structure of Hungarian folk song.