Tibor Serly (; Losonc,

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

, 25 November 1901 –

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, 8 October 1978) was a Hungarian

violist ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist, and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. Serly was the son of Lajos Serly, a pupil of

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

and a composer of songs and operettas in the last decades of the 19th century, who emigrated to America in 1905 with his family. Serly's first musical studies were with his father. Spending much of his childhood in New York City, Serly played violin in various pit orchestras led by his father. In 1922, he returned to Hungary to attend the

Franz Liszt Academy of Music The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music ( hu, Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem, often abbreviated as ''Zeneakadémia'', "Liszt Academy") is a music university and a concert hall in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, where he studied composition with

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...

, violin with

Jenő Hubay Jenő Hubay, Jenő Hubay von Szalatna, hu, szalatnai Hubay Jenő (; 15 September 185812 March 1937), also known by his German name Eugen Huber (), was a Hungarian violinist, composer and music teacher. Early life Hubay was born into a Ger ...

, and orchestration with

Leó Weiner Leó Weiner (16 April 1885 – 13 September 1960) was one of the leading Hungarian music educators of the first half of the twentieth century, and a composer. Life Education Weiner was born in Budapest to a Jewish family. His brother g ...

. He greatly admired and became a young apprentice of

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

; Serly would go on to become one of Bartók's great champions, writing and lecturing about him and conducting and recording many of his works. For the most part, these efforts received praise, both by Bartók and by colleagues. After graduating in 1925 with high honors in performance and composition, Serly returned to America, where he played viola with the Cincinnati Orchestra (1926–1927), Philadelphia Orchestra (1928–1935), and the NBC Orchestra (1937–1938). During these years, Serly formed close relationships with the poets

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

and

Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...

, who wrote a dedicatory poem to Serly, published in the avant-garde magazine ''Blues'' in February 1929. When Bartók and his wife emigrated to America during World War II, Serly met them at the docks and provided support to them. After Bartók's death in 1945, the family turned to Serly to orchestrate the final seventeen measures of the Third Piano Concerto as well as the Viola Concerto, which took Serly more than two years to compile from sketches into a performable piece. It is now one of the most widely performed viola pieces. While working on this project, Serly composed the ''Rhapsody on Folk Songs Harmonized by Béla Bartók for Viola and Orchestra,'' which has become one of his most well-known compositions. Serly taught composition at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

and

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory in New York City. The school offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition, as well as a bachelor's in mu ...

in New York City (among other institutions) and was also a featured composer/conductor with the Danish Radio Orchestra. He taught orchestration to Carlyle W. Hall Sr., a trumpet player and arranger for Tommy Tucker's band; composer

Glad Robinson Youse Gladys "Glad" Robinson Youse (1898 – 1985), was an American composer. Born in Miami, Oklahoma, Gladys Robinson graduated from Stephens College in 1919 with a music degree, then studied composition with Tibor Serly in New York. She married Cl ...

also studied with Serly. In the course of rethinking the major developments in harmony found in the work of

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...

Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer ...

, and

Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

as well as Bartók and other composers, Serly developed what he referred to as an ''

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written n ...

ist'' musical language. In his book ''Modus Lascivus'' (1975) he explored a set of 82 basic

tertian In music theory, ''tertian'' ( la, tertianus, "of or concerning thirds") describes any piece, chord, counterpoint etc. constructed from the intervals of (major and minor) thirds. An interval such as that between the notes A and C encompasses 3 ...

chords. Serly titled several of his later works as being "in modus lascivus", including sonatas for violin, viola, and piano. His ''Concertino 3 X 3'' uses this compositional system, but is most memorable for its formal structure: it consists of nine movements, the first three for piano solo, the second set of three movements for orchestra without piano, and the final set combining the previous sets, played simultaneously. In later life, Serly moved to Longview, Washington, with his second wife, the pianist Miriam Molin. He died at the age of seventy-six after being struck by a car in London."Tibor Serly, Composer, Completed Bartok Works." ''Washington Post,'' October 11, 1978.

Works

*Symphony No. 2 in Two Movements for Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion *Rhapsody on Folk Songs Harmonized by Béla Bartók for Viola and Orchestra (1946–48) *Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1929) *Concerto for Violin and Wind Symphony (1955–58) *Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1958) *Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (1951) *Piano Sonata No. 1 in "Modus Lascivus" (1946)

References

External links

Finding aid for the Tibor Serly papers
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Music Division
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Finding aid to Tibor Serly papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serly, Tibor 1901 births 1978 deaths Hungarian classical violists Hungarian classical violinists Male classical violinists Hungarian classical composers Hungarian male classical composers People from Lučenec 20th-century classical violinists 20th-century classical composers Pupils of Béla Bartók 20th-century Hungarian male musicians