udapest University Chorus One Of World's Oldest Choral G
roups
K nown eventually camne singers of great tal- voices it gave rise to the inaugura-
Organizationw To.Date ent""" tion of theWomen's Chorus of Buda-i
renb.t pest and in 1927 this work was given
At Least As Far Back As 1702 thets vs yierdsb tteGanratpis. InBudapest by the mixed chorus
the hors vsitd may cpitls.under the personal direction of the
Hungary was one of the countries composer.
The Budapest University Chorus is ; the interest in composition for choral which suffered greatly from the rav- In the past 30 years the Budapest
one of the oldest and most famous music, and for many centuries much ages of war, but the chorus continued Chorus has given countless concerts
choral organizations in the world.has been written for the Budapest its work and progress after the con- abro d. but hasonly once visited
Just as Notre Dame is noted for itsIUniversity's performance. Each time flict. It- began its tours again in; Amei. Its sndour
football team, Cornell for its Cayugathe chorus plans a foreign tour, new 1920 and was invited in 1925t
waters and Michigan for its graduate compositions are written for it, so1b
school, Budapest University is known ' that Hungarian music may be carried Pope himself to sing the papal mass Second Violin
for its chorus. The first written to other countries. to an audience of 5,000 people from When the Roth Quartet was playing
document concerning this famous or- The chorus has had a far-reaching all parts of the world. In 1927 the in Spain some years ago, a little old
ganization dates back to 1702. In influence. Before the war Louis Chorus returned to Italy again, visit- lady timidly approached them after
1867 another male chorus from the Halasz, the superintendent of music ing Rome, a visit which led to the their concert and asked to see the in-
Technical University of Science was in the schools of Hungary, and con- formation of the Rome University strument played by Jeno Antal, sec-
founded and in 1906 combined with ductor of the chorus at that time, Chorus. ond violin. Feri Roth, first violin,
the original Budapest University visited by special arrangement many An Italian composer of renown, to whom she applied, offered her his
Chorus. cities demonstrating the high stan- Licinio Refice, head of the Papal own instrument to examine, but she
The Chorus represents an. impor- dard of song. The result was the University of Music composed an insisted on seeing that of Antal, "be-
tant chapter in the development of enthusiastic formation of choruses in oratorio and presented it to the cause," she said, "I have never seen
Hungarian music. It has stimulated numerous other cities, from which Chorus. Since it was for mixeda second violin."
40 Male Voices Raised In Song: Budapest University Chorus
Chorus To Sing IH
Songs Dating Fi
The Hungarian music which will be
brought here by the Budapest Univer-
sity Chorus was famous as early as
the 12th century, when the Hunga-
rians fought as allies of the Russian
Prince Isislav against the Poles and'
Boheminas. When the Hungarians
marched into Kiev the townspeople
used to say, "The house is fortunate
in which Hungarian music sounds."
Hungarian music is not Gypsy mu-
sic, nor are the Gypsies responsible
for the earliest music of that land.
Long before the Gypsyever ventured
into Hungary, music and the dance
played a large part in the every-day
life of the Magyar. He used it in his
sacrifices and other religious cere-
monies, in national festivals, for ban-
quets and funerals, before and after
battle.
To this naturally musical country-
side where even the language, with
its perfect harmony between vowels
and consonants, its distinct articula-
tion, its uniformity and purity, was
indicative of its essential nature and
conducive to poetry and song, the
Gypsies found a music to which they
could readily adapt themselves. To
the folk tunes of this land, already
rich in rhythms, embellishments, they
subjected themselves, their phi-
losophy of abandon to life, their
)laintive melancholy and sudden
flight to merriment. They brought
flavor to songs already Hungarian;
Iungarian Folk .Great Music Stars
SDot.,Co ncert History
rom 12th Century
(Continued from Page 1)
they enriched but did not originate. bi, Gordon String Quartet, and Artur
From this nucleus of the Hunga- Schnabel.
ran folk song with its Gypsy flavor er1935
has grown the music to which musi- Metropolitan Opera Quartet, Rach _
cians of the past eight centuries have
been attracted. To reckon up all the
compositions which famous foreign
composers have written in the Hun-
garian style, or in which they have
used Hungarian songs, would neces-
sitate a regular anthology. To men-
tion a few-Haydn, Beethoven, Schu-
bert, Brahms, and Weber have been
decidedly influenced by the music of
the Magyars.
It would be an equally difficult task
to begin to list those musicians and
composers whose names have been
an honor to Hungary. She can claim
Liszt and Hummel, the masters of
the pianoforte; Josef Joachim and
Leopold Auer among'violinists; Dohn-
anyi, Haydn and many others. The
works of Zoltan Kodaly and Bela
maninoff, Don Cossacks, Fritz Kreis-
ler, Boston Symphony, St. Louis Sym-
phony, Kalesch String Quartet, De-
troit Symphony, John Charles Thom-
as and Myra Hess.
1936
Kirsten Flagstad, Chicago Sym-
phony, Moscow Cathedral Choir, Ja-
scha Heifetz, Boston Symphony Or--
chestra, Josef Hoffmann, Detroit
Symphony, Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur
Schnabel, Nelson Eddy.
1937
Rachmaninoff, Cleveland Sym-
phony Orchestra, Richard Crooks,
Fritz Kreisler, Boston Symphony,
Ruth Slenczynski, Helsinski Univer-
sity Chorus, Gina Cigna, Roth String
Quartet, and Georges Enesco.
Tributes from the great music centers of at least t.wo continents include:
BERLIN: "In the playing of the Roth Quartet, a new world was revealed to us."
NEW YORK: The Roth Quartet again gave' proof of the extraordinary qualities,
technical and interpretative, which have characterized their previous performances."
LOS ANGELES: "It is a virtuoso quartet."
March 9, 1939 the Roth String Quartet returns to Ann Arbor for another brilliant
'3
Bartok, pioneers of modern music in Has One Woman
Hungary, are acclaimed throughout The Cleveland Orchestra, like
the musical world today. . many such orchestras, numbers one
woman, the;solo harpist, among its
members. She is Alice Chalifoux,
Tired Of Fiddle born in'Birmingham, Ala., of French
Harry Fuchs, whose brother Josef parentage. She was hired seven
is concertmaster for the Cleveland years ago, shortly after her gradua-
Orchestra, but who himself plays the tion from the Curtis Institute of Mu-
cello in the organization, says he did sic in Philadelphia, by Nikolai Sokol-
not follow in his violin-playing broth- off, at that time conductor of the
er's footsteps because his arm got Cleveland Orchestra, who offered her
tired holding a fiddle, while he found a three year contract after hearing
he could rest by leaning on a cello.her play just once.
I ___
,.]
-
is
HORAL
NION
ONCERTS
Sixtieth Annual
Series,
1938-1939
1. Lawrence Tibbett, Baritone .
. October
27
2. Cleveland Orchestra .
ARTUR RODZINSKI, Conductor
3. Jose Iturbi, Pianist .
4. Kirsten Flagstad, Soprano
November
7
. .
. November
22
" i
6i
0
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
SERGE KOUSSEVITSKY, Conductor
Josef Hofmann, Pianist .
Budapest University Chorus
VIKTOR VASZY, Conductor
Yehudi Menuhin, Violinist
. . . November 30
: . . . December 7
. . . . January 10
January
25
February 15
.
Gregor Piatigorsky, Violoncellist.
. February
27
10. Roth String Quartet of Budapest
March 9
I,'
Jose Iturbi
Victor Vaszy
Season Tickets, $12, $10, $8, $6