poster for 2018 Creative Capitals Disc 3
×

Western composers, including Georg Philipp Telemann, were irresistibly drawn to the folk music of Central Europe, infusing some of their most popular works with its infectious spirit. With Hungarian music’s own nationalist movement in the early twentieth century, Hungary—and especially its capital, Budapest—assumed even greater importance in the Western classical tradition. Ernő Dohnányi, one of the twentieth century's most gifted and versatile musicians, was moreover the first elite Hungarian artist who chose to train at the Budapest Academy of Music rather than studying abroad. His countryman Zoltán Kodály followed suit, establishing Budapest as the epicenter of Hungary’s musical culture. Featured on Disc 3 alongside the music of Telemann, Kodály, and Dohnányi is a work by the modernist master György Ligeti, the heir apparent of the Hungarian tradition.