Gyula Dávid (Budapest, May 6, 1913 — Budapest, March 14, 1977) Kossuth Prize-winning Hungarian composer. Brother of architect Károly Dávid.

His life

Gyula Dávid was born on May 6, 1913 in Budapest, id. From the marriage of Károly Dávid, a construction contractor, and Anna Mária Mészáros  as her third child.  (His brothers are Károly Dávid Jr., an architect, and János Dávid, a company manager). His paternal grandparents were János Dávid and Róza Albrecht, his maternal grandparents were mason Gyula Mészáros and Mária Emília Sonnleitner.

His studies

He started playing music, as expected of bourgeois families, at the age of 5. At first his instrument was the violin, but “even my first teacher, Jenő Plán, said that I would not be a prodigy.” At the age of 15, he started composing in a self-taught way, and then, as a high school student, he began studying music theory with Antal Molnár.

Antal Molnár (1890-1983) was a music theory teacher at the music school, and from 1919 he was a teacher of music theory at the College of Music, a violinist of the Hubay – Dohnányi – Kerpely piano quartet, and the excellence of Hungarian music theory and music education. In addition to his articles, his name is preserved today by the School of Music.

In addition to the impulses gained at Antal Molnár, the singing and music lessons of the Cistercian Grammar School played a prominent role. His teacher was the young Cistercian monk Rajjzin Rajeczky, «who brought new air to the walls of the school and introduced him to the Gregorian chant, Renaissance choral literature and Kodály’s then freshly composed children’s songs instead of shoddy tandals.»

Benjámin Rajeczky, 1901-1989 Cistercian monk, music historian, folk music researcher. As a teacher, he built a choir, orchestra, and scout team. The concerts in which the accompanying choir works of Bartók and Kodály were performed for the first time were born from the collaboration of the choir and the orchestra. In the 1930s, he studied composition with Kodály, as well as collecting folk songs. From the 1950s onwards, in addition to his priestly calling, he dedicated his life to this. He was eventually retired in 1970 as director of the Folk Music Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1989, he was awarded the posthumous Kossuth Prize.

The result of Benjámin Rajeczky’s pedagogical work can be considered that several of his choir and orchestra later became significant artists: Endre Rősler, Kálmán Nádasdy, Pál Járdányi, Rezső Sugár, József Romhányi, Gyula Dávid.

Gyula Dávid made a lifelong «paternal» friendship with this great man and teacher. He celebrated his wedding, became the baptismal priest of his first child, helped each other in the difficult years before and after the war. He played an important role in the fact that, in addition to his students, Gyula Dávid became a student of Zoltán Kodály at the Academy of Music.

Like so many of his Hungarian composers, he studied with Zoltán Kodály (1933-1938), and at the same time as his composition studies, he also acquired a high degree of violin knowledge, because at the same time he studied violin with Dezső Rados and graduated from four academic classes.

Folk song collection

Encouraged by Kodály, he collected hundreds of Hungarian folk songs. Of these, the discovery of the Karádi song treasure is of outstanding significance, on the basis of which Kodály composed Karádi’s songs for men in 1934, László Vikár carried out a comprehensive song collection and scientific processing in the 1950s. they sound in order.

During my college years, “For money-making reasons, I toured all the peripheries of music life, from the jazz band to the cabaret band”. He worked as a music critic for «The Newspaper», composed chamber music, and commissioned the Radio and encouraged Kodály in the sheet music library of the National Theater.

His exploratory work became of musical historical and ideological significance in the 1950s and 1960s, when, with Kodály’s participation, a theoretical debate took place as to whether the musical motifs used in Ferenc Erkel’s folk plays were of folk origin. In this extremely ideological debate, Kodály argued for the Hungarianness of Ferenc Erkel, referring to his collection and processing at the Gyula Dávid National Theater.

Music and theater

After completing his studies, he joined the Székesfővárosi Városi orchestra as an orchestral musician and viola player (1938-43), which was interrupted by a one-year front service from the 43rd autumn. “I never had a special talent for playing the violin, but his viola was the eldorado of weak violinists. However, it was here that I first came into contact with higher-level practical music, met the best conductors from Klemperer to Mengelberg and Monteux, learned how to create a beautiful orchestral sound. ”

In addition to this important experience, he came into contact with theater, directors, actors and the world of theatrical music. His life was decisive for Tamás Major, the young avant-garde director who directed most of the youth performances of the City Theater at the time, and mostly received theatrical accompaniment a*signments from him. As early as 1938, he wrote music for the Tragedy of Man, including his performance The Widow Csokonai Widow, which was renewed several times after the war.

Theater home composer and music director

He spent the war year and a half after the front service in the orchestral trench or cellar of the National Theater, and from February 1945 to 1950 he worked as the theater’s music director, but remained a «home composer» of the National Theater until 1960. From 1938 to 1960, he wrote stage accompaniment for more than a hundred plays.

The world of the peculiar creative artist of the theater had a decisive force throughout his life. This peculiarity is manifested in the speed of the work, in the deep experience of the task, in the exaltation of the actor’s way of life, in the competitive struggle for the recognition of the audience, in the laziness of relief after the performances. In the theater, the good composer adapts, translating the director’s ideas into his own musical language. The music not only gives an atmosphere to the whole performance, to the story performed, but also contributes to the success or eventual failure of the actors. The music that prepares and accompanies the entry, the created-recalled world of music, and the creation of a song that fits well with the abilities and characters of the actor require understanding, sensitivity and creative creativity from the composer. You have to create music, you have to put together a small band of 10-15 people so that the sound is properly “theatrical”.

Between 1950 and 1952 he was the artistic and musical director of several Hungarian Honvéd Ensembles, he organized the orchestra and asked Zoltán Vásárhelyi to organize the choir. In 1952, the Interior Art Ensemble was commissioned to organize and conduct its orchestra, choir and dance choir. In the course of these duties, sometimes in a strong headwind, he tried to enforce good musical taste, there was plenty of room for a sense of music pedagogy.

The teacher and mentor

From 1950 to 1960, he was a lecturer at the College of Music. At this time he taught wind chamber music, after 1964 he taught string chamber music.

According to the stories of his students, the emphasis was on music and the technical possibilities of the instrument and the ensemble of music and sound. Above all, he encouraged his disciples to understand the work and not be afraid to interpret it based on their unique understanding. “He wanted to stand out from the instrument-centric playing because he was a chamber music teacher. … I remember we once played Mozart’s sonata at a concert and was very dissatisfied after the performance. «That’s not what I want to teach you,» he said. At that time, we learned more technical things in instrumental lessons. He, as a chamber music teacher, turned our ears to the form, the styles from which we learned a lot. ” (excerpt: from an interview with Géza Szilvai)

It was no coincidence that he taught wind chamber music, as between 1945-64 he wrote dozens of theatrical backing music for the National Theater. For performances, to rattle in a good sense, the dominance of the wind sound is best suited with a few strings and percussion. What’s more, the musicians, not infrequently, played music “dressed up” not on the ditch but on stage. Although it was the instrument of Gyula Dávid, it was originally his viola, but in the theater there was a way to delve into the mysteries of the wind sound. The theater not only provided an opportunity for this, but also to give its friends space and work opportunities. This is how it happened with the Budapest Wind Five, which was formed not long ago.

Establishment of the Budapest Wind Quintet in 1947. Its founding members are Zoltán Jeney (flute), Tibor Szeszler (oboe), György Balassa (clarinet), János Ónozó (horn) and László Hara (bassoon).

Zoltán Jeney was born in Subotica in 1915, he was a student of the College of Music from 1933 to 1940, where he graduated from two departments. He studied flute from Lajos Dömötör, and also went to composition with Albert Siklós and Zoltán Kodály. Already as a college student, he played the solo flute of the Budapest Concert Orchestra, then became a member of the State Opera House Orchestra, where he played until his retirement, and the State Concert Orchestra

In 1949, Gyula Dávid wrote their first wind quintet for them, which was also performed by the Wind Trio, the Flute Piano Sonata, I. and II. brass quintet, and finally the Horn Competition followed

These pieces also aided the work of the teacher by taking into account the technical and musical readiness of the students, and were also suitable for concerts organized as rehearsals and final exams. The result of this work is also two “Flute Schools”, “Bassoon School”. He expressed his sensitivity and openness as a teacher-mentor by thinking as a composer about the performers and their artistic and instrumental abilities at the moment of writing the work. Be they students or mature artists.

As a music teacher, the Wind Chamber was the most proud of the Hungarian Wind Five founded in 1961 from its students in 1961. “It was founded in 1961 by members of a new, talented and well-trained wind generation that grew up after the war. Their predecessor and role model was the successfully operating Budapest wind quintet. Péter Pongrácz, Béla Kovács and Tibor Fülemile Dávid worked together in chamber music lessons at the Academy of Music, and from Mozart to contemporary composers they performed works of the most varied eras and styles. ”

Between 1950 and 1960, as a lecturer at the Liszt Ferenc College of Music, he taught wind chamber music, for which he also wrote several works suitable for teaching, practicing and performing.

In 1960, he was content not to be appointed a full-time college teacher, and therefore resigned from college. The reasons for this go back to the 1940s, the time of conceptual lawsuits. His left-wing communist friends and acquaintances were sued, and they wanted to extort confessions from him as well.

Gyula Dávid was never interested in politics, but when it already called into question human existence, character and honesty, he was compelled to act and helped. So he did this with the persecuted leftists, communists, Jews during the war and he adhered to the same values ​​when they wanted to extort confessions from him during conceptual lawsuits. In 1957, after the revolution, the power reason artist offered a career, if they publicly committed to the Party, they would join the party. He was also offered a College Teacher appointment in return, but he refused. In 1960, he unsuccessfully applied for his appointment, and after his request was not granted. He resigned. In 1964, he received an invitation without compensation, but only for the position of Béla Bartók’s conservatory teacher at the college, which he had already gladly accepted. This is how he was able to continue teaching chamber music for the rest of his life.

His world of music and classical music works

The work has been performed abroad with great success, even in the author’s life (Berlin, Moscow, Bucharest, Leipzig)

The foundation of the teaching of wind chamber music is especially important in his pedagogical work. In 1949, he was the first Hungarian composer to write a wind quintet.

Viola competition

Performance: 1951, Székesfővárosi Orchestra, soloist: Pál Lukács (vla.), Conductor: János Ferencsik.

I. Lot I: Allegro

Sonata form. After a vigorous orchestral introduction, the viola intonates the main theme, which is further intertwined in virtuoso races, octave races and orchestral accompaniment. After an orchestral interlude, a light, playful theme is pulsating, followed by a lyrical sub-theme, first in the orchestra and then on the solo viola. The processing part starts on a subdominant: the author varies the main theme and the sub-theme, enriched with modulations, races, contrasts of dynamic contrasts. The return is the same as the exposure with minor changes. The movement concludes with a short, vigorous code that is a varied material of the orchestral introduction. It is characteristic of both the first and the other movements that the band accompanies the solo instrument primarily and rarely plays an independent role.

II. tétel: Slowly but not too much

After a soft orchestral introduction to the three-member song, the song is a soft, singing melody on the viola and, with ornaments and short cadences, melts into a second B minor theme, accompanied by an eighth-movement movement. After the solo cadence, the second theme returns in the basic tone, and then the first melody dies on the viola over the empty chords of c-g-c muted in the orchestra.

III. tétel: Vivace

The movement, written in sonata-rondo form, starts with a scooter lydi theme and arrives at the dominant one, on which another virtuoso dance theme emerges. The rondo theme returns in a varied form and leads to a playful, folk-like side theme that is light and contrasting with the racing rondo theme. His cadence is slow, a version of the broadly curved melodies of the second movement. The cadence traces the rondo theme back and repeats each theme once more.

Concerto Grosso for viola and string orchestra

(I. Allegro; II. Adagio; III. Vivace)

The technique of the concerto grosso, composed in 1963, follows the twelve-degree editing, but its form refers to Baroque foreshadowing. The motorist’s pulsating rhythm of the first movement, as well as the alternating playing of the solo instrument and the ensemble also have a baroque effect. The melodic arioso of the slow movement is followed by a brightly paced rondo, the theme of which is repeatedly motivated by the composer in each stage of form.

The concerto grosso was recommended by Gyula Dávid — similarly to the viola competition — to Pál Lukács, who performed it at the premiere in 1963 under the direction of György Fejér.

His other major works

• Symphony (won a prize in the 1948 centenary competition)
• Ballet music (music written for a fairy tale, presented in the form of a suite)
  wind quintet (1949)
• Orchestral songs, poems by Endre Ady and Attila József
• Violin Competition (The concerto, written in 1964-65, was presented in 1966 by Dénes Kovács, conducted by Ervin Lukács.)