Zoltán Kodály (1882 - 1967)
Music for Cello

Three Chorale Preludes
Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8
Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 4

Kodály's unhappy lot in life and history was to play second fiddle to Béla Bartók. For years he was accused of plagiarism, he was critically hounded ("organised persecution", Bartók called it), and his inherent gentleness and selfless personal demeanour (remembered so well by the present author) was mistaken for weakness or lack of fibre. Given his lyric temperament, his nationalism, the premium he placed on expressive nuance and harmony, his misfortune perhaps (like the nordic Vaughan Williams/Sibelius/Roy Harris generation) was to have been born into an age progressively more interested in cancelling than renewing old values. He may have spanned the generations from old Liszt to young Ligeti, he may have lived through two world wars, Hitler, the Soviets and 1956, but comparatively little of such trans