HUNGARIAN STUDIES 23. No. 1., No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság, Balassi Intézet. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2009]

2009 / 1. szám - SOMFAI LÁSZLÓ: Fifty years in Haydn research : A personal account

HStud 23 (2009)1. 3-10 DOl: 10.15566/HSlud.23.2009.1.1 FIFTY YEARS IN HAYDN RESEARCH: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT* LÁSZLÓ SOMFAI Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest Hungary The following article offers a short chronicle of the scholarship on Haydn in Hun­gary since the late 1950s, identifying some of the major contributions, he raises questions concerning possible further interconnections between the scholarly work of the researcher and the creative work of the performer. Keywords: Haydn, Hungary, manuscript, score, urtext, original instruments, recep­tion theory, folk music There was little significant scholarly work on Haydn in Hungary until roughly the 1950s. Certainly the time he spent in Hungary in the service of the Esterházy family, the contacts he had with Bratislava (or rather Pozsony or Pressburg, as it was more commonly known at the time), and his journey to Buda to conduct Die Schöpfung awoke some interest and led to some serious scholarly endeavors. Be­tween the two wars Ervin Major, an independent scholar, pursued some work on the Hungarian tunes and dances that influenced Haydn's music, and Endre Csatkai examined local documents of interest in Sopron (or Ödenburg, as it was more commonly known). But fora young professional from the West real partners in Haydn research seemed to be missing. In his search for Haydn's ancestors, Ernst Fritz Schmid could find no professional assistance, and young Jens Peter Larsen, who in the 1930s came to work on primary sources in the Esterházy fam­ily archive in Budapest, had to content himself with János Hárich, the archivist, as his sole collaborator. One can only wonder whether at the time they knew that there were Hungarian musicologists who held doctorates from Germany, includ­ing Hermann Abert's pupil Bence Szabolcsi and Dénes Bartha, who had studied in Berlin. The best specialized study was perhaps the survey of the baritone works by Béla Csuka, a cellist. * The article is a slightly modified version of the opening address held by László Somfai at the "Haydn 2009: A Bicentenary Conference" in Budapest. Hungarian Studies 23/1 (2009) 0236-6568/S20.00 © 2009 Akadémiai Kiadó. Budapest

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