Kodaly: Háry János (musical numbers 3 and 5)

Junko Sakimura, Cimbalom Atsushi Takahashi, Director Japan Friendship Philharmony:

Song

Kodály

Zoltán Kodály was born December 16, 1882, at Kecskemét in Hungary.
Háry János is a "Hungarian folk Opera" in four acts and based on the comic epic The Veteran av János Garay. Háry János is a "Hungarian folk opera"  The first performance was at Budapest on October 16, 1926.
The suite has six musical numbers: No.1, "Prelude: A Fairy Tale Begins", No.2, "Viennese Musical Clock", No. 3, "Song", No.4, "The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon", No. 5, Intermezzo (most famous) and No.6, "Entrance of the Emperor and His Court".

Intermezzo

The characater from which the opera takes its name is one of those figures which, wheter originating in folklore or literature, grow to assume national proportions. he is of the company of Falstaff, Don Quixote, Eulenspiegel, and particularly of Münchhausen. He is a good-tempered, time-expired soldier who sits in the village in boasting of heroic deeds which he never performed, an exuberant creation of Hungarian folklore. He believes his own stories, for in his day-dreams they all true.

Bartók

 
Kodály was less ambitious than Béla Bartók, thought the latter said that Kodály's works are the perfect incarnation of the spirit of Hungary and that his music constitutes 'a real profession of faith in the Hungarian soul'.
 

Kodály  died 1967 from a heart attack.
 
/sö
Source: Mainly The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians - Ninth Edition (1964).