''Dances of Galánta'' (''Galántai táncok'') is a

1933 Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...

orchestral work by Zoltán Kodály.

History

The piece was composed on commission for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. It is based on folk music of

Galánta Galanta ( hu, Galánta, german: Gallandau) is a town (about 15,000 inhabitants) in the Trnava Region of Slovakia. It is situated 50 km due east of the Slovak capital Bratislava. Etymology The name is derived from a Slavic name ''Golęta'' (i ...

(now part of Slovakia), where Kodály lived for several years. The composer remarked: "At that time there existed a famous Gypsy band...This was the first 'orchestral' sonority that came to the ears of the child...About 1800 some books of Hungarian dances were published in Vienna, one of which contained music 'after several Gypsies from Galánta'...the composer has taken his principal themes from these old publications". Most of the pieces used were of the ''verbunkos'' style – originally developed as military recruiting music, but generalizing to a Hungarian folk tradition in the early 1800s. Kodály saw the piece as a "sequel" to his 1927 piano suite (later orchestrated) ''

Dances of Marosszék Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

''.

Music

''Dances of Galánta'' is in five sections, lasting a total of about 16 minutes. It is scored for two

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

, two oboes, two

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

s in A, two

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...

s, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, triangle,

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

snare drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used ...

, and

string orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...

. The clarinet is particularly prominent, representing the traditional

tárogató The tárogató (''töröksíp'', ''Turkish pipe''; plural ''tárogatók'' or, anglicized, ''tárogatós''; ro, taragot or ''torogoata'') refers to two different woodwind instruments commonly used in both Hungarian and Romanian folk music. Th ...

(a type of single-reed instrument). The piece recalls the two-part slow-fast structure of the traditional '' verbunkos'' music: it opens with a slow introduction moving to a clarinet

cadenza In music, a cadenza (from it, cadenza, link=no , meaning cadence; plural, ''cadenze'' ) is, generically, an improvisation, improvised or written-out ornament (music), ornamental passage (music), passage played or sung by a solo (music), sol ...

and andante maestoso section, followed by four fast dance sections. The faster sections adopt a characteristic

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...

rhythm.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dances of Galanta 1933 compositions Compositions by Zoltán Kodály Hungarian music