Kodály, Zoltán

the vocal score for tenor solo, chorus and piano, notated in black ink on up to twenty staves per page, with the text in Hungarian only, a few deletions and corrections to the music and an addition to the text in blue crayon, the music extended into the margin on hand-drawn staves in three places, inscribed by the composer at the end ("Cette copie autographe est offerte à 'The Musicians Foundation' inc. en témoignage de la reconnaissance de l'auteur")

20 pages, folio (33 x 25cm), including the autograph title, 20-stave paper, card wrappers, dated in another hand on the front cover "1924", some splitting to the wrapper at hinge; together with two autograph letters about this manuscript signed by Antal Doráti, relaying a confirmation of its authenticity by László Eősze, 2 pages, 4to, printed stationery, autograph envelopes, Walchwil (Switzerland), 19 May-8 July 1977, modern cloth-backed folder

Z. Kodály, Psalmus Hungaricus: op.13, Faksimile-Ausgabe der Originalhandschrift mit einer Studie von Ferenc Bónis, (Budapest, 1987) 

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AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS OF MAJOR WORKS BY KODALY ARE OF THE GREATEST RARITY AT AUCTION.

Psalmus Hungaricus op.13 is one of Kodály's best-known works; its success in 1923 proved a turning point in his career as a composer, previously only known as an ethnomusicologist and teacher.  This large-scale oratorio for tenor, chorus and orchestra was commissioned to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Buda and Pest, where it was performed on 19 November 1923.   The text is based on Psalm 55, "Give ear to my prayer, oh God", translated by the sixteenth-century poet, Mihály Vég, who came from Kodály's home town of Kecskemét. 

Kodály's powerful and dramatic cantata has always provided an intense national experience for generations of Hungarians.  The music is notable for its strong dissonances, including striking enharmonic clashes and the overall modal flavour of its melodies.   Although Kodály does not actually use any Hungarian folk-songs, he achieves something of their effect by incorporating Aeolian and pentatonic scales and frequent plagal cadences. 

Kodály's composition manuscript of Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), written in pencil, is in the Budapest Historical Museum, and his original arrangement of the vocal score, with a partial German translation, is also in Budapest, at the Kodály Memorial Museum.  Kodály also prepared two autograph fair copies for the printer in 1924, both with German translations, and both now in the Paul-Sacher Stiftung in Basel.  The present manuscript differs from the printed vocal-score arrangements, lacking some of the dynamic, expression and articulation markings.