Hungarian Rhapsody
By Christopher Lambton
We were lured to Hungary by Kodály. Who? To most people the name probably means very little. To concert goers he is the tuneful composer of Hary Janos, Psalmus Hungaricus, and a handful of popular orchestral works. But in the field of music education, Kodály is a towering figure, a pedagogical genius whose methodology has the potential to transform music education wherever it is applied. The Institute founded in his name is hidden away in an abandoned monastery in a picturesque town on the great Hungarian plain, but attracts students from all over the globe. Most of the students are young, carefree, and at the beginning of their adult lives. We decided to go as a family.
In some walks of life it is quite normal for a family to go and live abroad for a period. In Hungary, the usual ranks of diplomats and academics have been swelled by business executives attracted by the rapidly deregulating economy: Tesco, Masterfoods, and kpmg are well established examples. Such corporate postings are typically well insulated against local conditions with the provision of flights home, medical insurance, and UK school fees.
In our case we were reliant on our own resources. Before we left the UK my wife Julie was teaching music privately in a converted stable at our home in Scotland. I was at a natural pause in a long term career as a self-employed journalist. Our son Alexander (12) was anticipating his first year at High (Secondary) School, while Kitty (9) still had some years to run at our local Primary School. The motivation to go abroad for a year was twofold. We are fortunate to live in a small, sociable village, but we felt that two reasonably capable children would benefit from a complete, albeit temporary, change of scene. Julie, meanwhile, was becoming more and more attracted to what is loosely called the "Kodály Method". She had assimilated some Kodály techniques from various courses in Scotland, and was applying them in music classes for young children in towns and villages near our home. In the process she had become aware of the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, and it soon became apparent that the logical next step would be to attend a one year course at the Institute.
Julie and I paid a reconnaissance visit to the Kodály Institute in February 2005. Kecskemét, which is about 60 miles south of Budapest, was in full winter clothing, looking by turns picturesque and godforsaken under a daily dusting of snow. While Julie attended one of the short courses for music teachers arranged periodically by the Institute, I tried to find out what would happen if we descended on the town with two children requiring some sort of education. It all happened remarkably quickly and easily, largely thanks to the intercession of the Institute staff. We were offered a house by a Polish-English family who had come to Kecskemét and fallen in love with the easy Hungarian existence, but were now living in London. The local Kodály School offered to take both children for a year. What, I asked, would be the fee? There would be no fee, I was told, unless I required certification at the end of the year. (We were later to learn that Hungarian education is heavy on results and certification).
Six months or so later we returned to Kecskemét a week before the Hungarian school term, which by law always begins on 1 September. The language was an immediate challenge: guide books to Hungary suggest that the use of English is widespread, but in fact it is rarely understood, let alone spoken, outside the tourist areas of Budapest. Schools, fortunately, are an exception. Many teachers speak a little English and those who actually teach the language are more or less fluent. Even in sleepy Kecskemét there is a bilingual secondary school (Katona Jozef Gymnazium) where pupils over the age of 14 are taught both in English and Hungarian. Before our arrival we had made contact with an English teacher at the Kodály School without whose assistance our first few weeks would have been very difficult indeed. We were told where to buy the special blue uniform shirts (they are hand made by a small shop that has a bizarre monopoly on supply), which classes our children should attend, how to arrange instrumental tuition, and the correct uniform for the opening ceremony.
Looking back it seems as though we staggered through these opening weeks with only the slightest notion of what the next day might bring. But gradually the dust settled. Kitty, we gathered, had a class teacher who spoke reasonable English, while her violin teacher was much more fluent. Alexander, by contrast, only occasionally had any contact with an English speaking teacher and was learning the clarinet entirely by sign language. (This was to prove an excellent method.) We realised that his French class, in Hungarian, was entirely incomprehensible so switched him to an English class where his adolescent jargon could at least be of some use to the teacher. We signed both children up for weekly Hungarian lessons with another teacher normally assigned to children with special needs. For those lessons where they could not contribute at all, we supplied school work from Scotland.
Kodály Schools are not specialist music schools, although they are thought of as such, even by Hungarians who should know better. Kodály believed that music, based on classroom singing, should form a large and integral part of a general education. For most of his life (1882-1967) Hungary was under foreign domination [links to Austro Hungarian empire; communism; 1956 uprising) /history?] and he saw music, in particular genuine Magyar folk music, as a way of connecting the population with their national identity. At the same time, it was observed how pupils with a sound grasp of music also excelled in other subjects.
Kecskemét's Kodály School is directly descended from the very first Kodály School to be established. In fact it celebrated its 55th anniversary during the autumn term of 2005 while we were there. However it only recently moved into its current premises, an elegant classical building which was used by the Russian army as a barracks until the collapse of the communist system in Eastern Europe. The original barracks form three sides of a large courtyard, with the fourth side of the courtyard completed by a spacious new building that contains most of the classrooms and two concert halls. The barrack wings were left in terrible condition by the Soviets but have been restored to contain dozens of soundproofed instrumental teaching rooms. The entire school is light, airy, and friendly, and has an excellent reputation, which explains why competition for places is fierce. Our own children were admitted because a few students drop out every year, and under the Hungarian system it is difficult for non-Kodály trained pupils to fill their places.
Julie, meanwhile, had started work at the Kodály Institute, tucked down a side street in the town centre, twenty minutes walk away from the school. The institute exists primarily to train music teachers, and her 20 or so fellow students ranged from recent graduates at the very beginning of a teaching career to those with years of experience. They came from all over the globe, with widely varying abilities, but all united by a desire to understand and practise the Kodály method. Kodály himself was adamant that teachers should be musicians of the highest calibre, and to that end the Institute resembles a musical assault course with classes that include piano pedagogy, folk music, solfège, Kodály philosophy, methodology, and conducting. Since its foundation 30 years ago, the Institute has taught in English, since it was always the aim to disseminate Kodály's methods as widely as possible.
With three quarters of my family under the Kodály umbrella, it was time for me to get involved. It wasn't long before I came across a remarkable class in the Kodály School where senior pupils were being taught, in English, about English music. English is currently regarded as the global language of the future and in Hungary it is rapidly displacing German as the language of international business, even with German companies. But for young musicians, English is equally useful. Many young players and conductors are lured to the US by attractive salaries in well-endowed orchestras, but even in polyglot Europe it has become normal for conductors to speak in English and for their orchestras to have to understand them. For my part, I found myself giving impromptu lectures to these classes, correcting concert reviews, and discussing their forthcoming trip to musical sites across the south of England (they are there as I write).
I was also teaching English commercially so it became quite a challenge to remember where anyone was supposed to be at any one time. The children would go to school at 7.30am, come back around noon, and go back in the afternoon twice a week for instrumental lessons. Hungarian law changed just after our arrival and the first price we were quoted for lessons (about £6/month) was suddenly transformed into about £3 per half hour lesson, still very cheap by UK standards. With two half hour lessons every week, both Alexander and Kitty made huge steps forward in their respective instruments. Alexander joined a wind band which met every Friday evening to play popular marches. From time to time the band would be kitted out with red jackets and go and play in the town square for one of Hungary's many public occasions.
Both children were repeatedly asked to perform in concerts at the school. At first we thought this a great honour but soon realised that it was an integral part of the teaching process. Concerts would typically be at 5pm and last about an hour, with performances that ranged from one tiny girl playing a 20 second piano piece to a senior pupil playing a complete Vivaldi sonata. By the end of the year both children had lost all fear of performing in public. They would also perform at the informal concerts given by the students at the Institute.
School and Institute are separate but closely linked. A fundamental ingredient of the Institute course is observation of Kodály teaching in practice, so Julie frequently found herself in the school observing both Alexander's and Kitty's music classes, among others. Discussion of these shared experiences was a benefit unique to us as a family. If one of the children did not understand some of the work, Julie was able to explain it later in the day, sometimes vice versa. The children were also able to report that the teachers were markedly more tolerant and conscientious when under observation than when not!
We also noticed the somewhat surprising fact that while music teaching in Hungary is probably the best in the world, this success has not translated to other disciplines. Kodály said that music should be taught through experience, and in action it is exemplary. But other subjects are taught with Victorian rigidity, with marks awarded week by week on a scale of 1-5. These are desperately important, even from an early age, since poor marks will limit the choice of secondary school (from the age of 14) and thus the future career of the pupil.
This is being written toward the end of our educational experience in Hungary and as we contemplate our return we feel lucky that the Scottish educational system has shown sufficient flexibility to have allowed both our children to come to Hungary without any fear that they may never catch up with their classmates. Julie, meanwhile, can join the growing ranks of Kodály trained music teachers whose skill can help rekindle and transform music tuition in the UK at both local and national levels.
© Christopher Lambton. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.