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(Zol’-tan Ko-da’-e) 1882–1967 Hungarian composer Kodály was closely associated with Bartók in folksong collecting and research, but his own music takes less radical paths. Apart from his compositions – notably the colourful Peacock Variations (1939) on a Hungarian folk tune, the Dances of Marosszék (1930) and Dances of Galánta (1933), the impressive choral Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), a fine sonata ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Modern Era

The dulcimer is a type of box zither whose name derives from dulce melos or ‘sweet sound’. Usually with four sides, none of them running parallel to each other (though as this is an instrument to be found under various names in practically every country on earth, it is difficult to be definite), it has several strings but no ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Modern Era

The twentieth century saw the piano return to the orchestra: notable works including the orchestral piano are Kodály’s Háry János (1926), Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony and Orff’s Carmina Burana (1937). Modern composers realized that, as it creates sound with hammers that strike strings, the piano is technically a member of the percussion family. Indeed, in Grainger’s The Warriors (1916) ...

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• Modern Era

(Âr-nö Dokh-nan’-ye) 1877–1960 Hungarian composer Less influenced by folk music than his contemporaries Bartók and Kodály, Dohnányi cultivated a late-Romantic style rooted in Brahms, though not without the sense of humour obvious in his Variations on a Nursery Theme (1914), nor occasional resort to national melodies, as in Ruralia Hungarica (‘Rural Hungary’, 1924). His success as a conductor ...

• Classical
• Modern Era

The Modern Age was characterized by rapid and radical change and political turmoil. By 1918 the Russian tsar, the Habsburg emperor and the German kaiser had lost their thrones. The two Russian revolutions of 1917 resulted in a Communist government led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was fragmented to allow self-determination to the newly formed countries of Czechoslovakia ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(A’-ram Kha-cha-toor’-yan) 1903–78 Armenian composer Khachaturian’s music is conservative, winning popularity with its ample tunefulness, sometimes with local colour derived from Armenian folk music. His ballets Gayane (1942) and Spartacus (1954) were very successful in the Soviet Union, and extracts from them (the ‘Sabre Dance’ from Gayane, the pas-de-deux from Spartacus) became world-famous. His concertos, concerto-rhapsodies ...