László Lajtha
Encyclopedia
László Lajtha (30 June 1892 – 16 February 1963) was a Hungarian
composer
, ethnomusicologist and conductor
.
Lajtha studied with Viktor Herzfeld in the Academy of Music in that city and then in Leipzig
, Geneva
and finally Paris
where he was a pupil of Vincent d'Indy
. Before the First World War, in collaboration with Béla Bartók
and Zoltán Kodály
, he undertook the study and transcription of Hungarian folk song, heading up a project to produce a series of folk music recordings. Throughout the war he served at the front as an artillery officer, an experience recalled in his sombre Second Symphony (1938) – a work that remained unperformed until 1988. In 1919 he began teaching at the Budapest National Conservatory. (Among his pupils was the conductor János Ferencsik
, who was later one of the principal champions of his music.) From 1928 he was a member of the International Commission of Popular Arts and Traditions of the League of Nations
. He was also a member of the International Folk Music Council based in London
.
After the Second World War, Lajtha was appointed Director of Music for Hungarian Radio
, director of the Museum of Ethnography and of the Budapest National Conservatory. His symphonic piece In Memoriam was the first new work to be premiered in Budapest when concerts could be given there again. In 1947-48 Lajtha spent a year in London, having been asked by the film director Georg Hoellering to compose music for his film of T. S. Eliot
's verse drama Murder in the Cathedral
. Rather than providing a dedicated film score, Lajtha wrote three important concert works – his Third Symphony, Orchestral Variations and Harp Quintet No.2 - extracts from which were used in the film. On his return to Hungary his passport was confiscated for having stayed too long in the West and he was removed from all the aforementioned posts. In 1951 he was awarded the Kossuth Prize
for his activities in folk-music research.
With his wife Rózsa Hollós whom he married in 1919 he had two sons: László Lajtha (d. 1995) who was a world-renowned cancer researcher and Ábel Lajtha who is an internationally renowned neurologist and brain researcher living in the US.
Prize. From his time in Paris before the First World War Lajtha had many friends among French artists, such as the novelist Romain Rolland
and the composer Henri Barraud, and from 1930 he had some of his works published by the Paris publisher Alphonse Leduc. He was the only Hungarian composer since Franz Liszt
to be elected a corresponding member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts
. Lajtha's works include
along with many other orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental works, church music and film music. His works display an intriguing synthesis of French and Hungarian national elements with musical neo-classicism, very clearly seen for example in his Fourth Symphony (1951), entitled Le Printemps. His later works are more radical in their construction and employ some extreme dissonance, for example the Seventh Symphony, Autumn (1957), conceived as a lament for the 1956 uprising
.
Lajtha is regarded as the foremost Hungarian symphonist. Awareness of his music has however suffered, both in Hungary and abroad, as a result of its suppression under the Communist regime due to his support for the 1956 uprising. In addition a ban on Lajtha travelling abroad denied him performance opportunities, and it is only in recent years that his reputation has begun to be established as one of Hungary's most important composers.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, ethnomusicologist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Career
Born to Ida Wiesel, a Transsylvanian-Hungarian with some Saxon-German ancestry as the name Wiesel indicates and Pál Lajtha, an owner of a leather factory. The father Pál had ambitions to become a conductor,played the violin well and also composed.Lajtha studied with Viktor Herzfeld in the Academy of Music in that city and then in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and finally Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he was a pupil of Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...
. Before the First World War, in collaboration with Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
and Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....
, he undertook the study and transcription of Hungarian folk song, heading up a project to produce a series of folk music recordings. Throughout the war he served at the front as an artillery officer, an experience recalled in his sombre Second Symphony (1938) – a work that remained unperformed until 1988. In 1919 he began teaching at the Budapest National Conservatory. (Among his pupils was the conductor János Ferencsik
János Ferencsik
János Ferencsik was a Hungarian conductor.Ferencsik was born in Budapest; he actively played music even as a very young boy. He took violin lessons and taught himself to play the organ. He studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Budapest, where his major subjects were organ performance...
, who was later one of the principal champions of his music.) From 1928 he was a member of the International Commission of Popular Arts and Traditions of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. He was also a member of the International Folk Music Council based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
After the Second World War, Lajtha was appointed Director of Music for Hungarian Radio
Hungarian Radio
Magyar Rádió is Hungary's publicly funded radio broadcasting organization. It is also the country's official international broadcasting station...
, director of the Museum of Ethnography and of the Budapest National Conservatory. His symphonic piece In Memoriam was the first new work to be premiered in Budapest when concerts could be given there again. In 1947-48 Lajtha spent a year in London, having been asked by the film director Georg Hoellering to compose music for his film of T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's verse drama Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...
. Rather than providing a dedicated film score, Lajtha wrote three important concert works – his Third Symphony, Orchestral Variations and Harp Quintet No.2 - extracts from which were used in the film. On his return to Hungary his passport was confiscated for having stayed too long in the West and he was removed from all the aforementioned posts. In 1951 he was awarded the Kossuth Prize
Kossuth Prize
The Kossuth Prize is a state-sponsored award in Hungary, named after the Hungarian politician and revolutionary Lajos Kossuth. The Prize was established in 1948 by the Hungarian National Assembly, to acknowledge outstanding personal and group achievements in the fields of...
for his activities in folk-music research.
With his wife Rózsa Hollós whom he married in 1919 he had two sons: László Lajtha (d. 1995) who was a world-renowned cancer researcher and Ábel Lajtha who is an internationally renowned neurologist and brain researcher living in the US.
Reputation
Lajtha's international recognition as a composer began in 1929 with his String Quartet No.3, which was awarded the CoolidgeElizabeth Sprague Coolidge
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge aka Liz Coolidge , born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music....
Prize. From his time in Paris before the First World War Lajtha had many friends among French artists, such as the novelist Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
and the composer Henri Barraud, and from 1930 he had some of his works published by the Paris publisher Alphonse Leduc. He was the only Hungarian composer since Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
to be elected a corresponding member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
. Lajtha's works include
- nine symphoniesSymphonyA symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
- ten string quartetString quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s - three balletBalletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
s: Lysistrata (1933), The Grove of the Four Gods (1943) and Capriccio (1944) - an operettaOperettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
: The Blue Hat (1950)
along with many other orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental works, church music and film music. His works display an intriguing synthesis of French and Hungarian national elements with musical neo-classicism, very clearly seen for example in his Fourth Symphony (1951), entitled Le Printemps. His later works are more radical in their construction and employ some extreme dissonance, for example the Seventh Symphony, Autumn (1957), conceived as a lament for the 1956 uprising
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
.
Lajtha is regarded as the foremost Hungarian symphonist. Awareness of his music has however suffered, both in Hungary and abroad, as a result of its suppression under the Communist regime due to his support for the 1956 uprising. In addition a ban on Lajtha travelling abroad denied him performance opportunities, and it is only in recent years that his reputation has begun to be established as one of Hungary's most important composers.
Selected list of orchestral works
-
- Overture and Suite No. 1, op. 19 (1933) - from ballet Lysistrata
- Hortobágy, 2 symphonic pictures derived from music to the film by Georg Hoellering, op. 21 (1934)
- Symphony No. 1, op. 24 (1936)
- Symphony No. 2, op. 27 (1938)
- In Memoriam, op. 35 (1941)
- Suite No. 2, op. 38 (1943) - from ballet The Grove of the Four Gods
- Capriccio - Suite from the ballet, op. 39 (1955)
- Variations, op. 44 (11 variations for orchestra on a Simple Theme, 'Temptations) (1947-8)
- Symphony No. 3, op. 45 (1947-8)
- Shapes and Forms, music for a film, op. 48 (1949)
- Symphony No. 4 Le Printemps ("Spring"), op. 52 (1951)
- Symphony No. 5, op. 55 (1952)
- Suite No. 3, op. 56 (1953 - written for the 100th anniversary of the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra)
- Symphony No. 6, op. 61 (1955)
- Symphony No. 7, op. 63 Autumn (1957 - also called Revolution Symphony)
- Symphony No. 8, op. 66 (1959)
- Symphony No. 9, op. 67 (1963)
Other works
- Missa in dies tribulationis for chorus and orchestra, op. 50 (1950)
- Sinfonietta No. 1 for string orchestra, op. 43 (1946)
- Sinfonietta No. 2 for string orchestra, op. 62 (1956)
- Marionettes for harp, flute, violin, viola and cello
- Harp Quintet No. 2
- String Trio No.1 (1932)
- String Trio No. 3 "Soirs transylvanis"
- Prélude for piano
- 3 Berceuses for piano
- Missa for choir and organ
- 3 Nocturnes for soprano, flute, harp and string quartet