Scan 30
Groves Dictionary Of Music And Musicians,vol.5 L-m, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1survey of Lajtha's music reveals an almost unbroken continuity of development, in the early phases of which the harmonic aspects are stressed, giving place, during subsequent stages, to predominantly contrapuntal treatment and arriving in recent years at an equilibrium of craftsmanship and invention of exceptional clarity and directness. Seen from another standpoint, Lajtha's development may be characterized as a gradual assertion of melody.
3Regarding the style of his harmony, the early works show a complex idiom derived from the experimental tendencies of the first decade of the 20th century: superimposed fourths, appoggiaturas and suspensions and other dissonant aggregates furnish the basis of chordal structure whose progression is predominantly chromatic. These are evident in his early pianoforte works, where the specific influences of Bartók and Debussy are also discernible; in addition the part-writing of his pianoforte Sonata, apart from its considerable harmonic complexities, is conceived in the grand virtuoso manner of Liszt. In his subsequent works, where the contrapuntal aspect is gradually gaining prominence, his harmony, though not relinquishing the advanced vocabulary, is subordinated to the horizontal elements. Discords are more purposefully used, and their tension values consequently become increased. Emergence of counterpoint has also led to a preoccupation with chamber combinations during a period which may be said to have started, approximately, with the years following the first world war and lasted up to about the mid-1930s. The most typical works, with the points previously mentioned well in evidence, are his third and fourth string Quartet, the second string Trio and the fifth string Quartet, which indicates a transition to his subsequent creative period. This was characterized, as far as harmony is concerned, by a return to a chordal structure of diatonic purity, in which Lajtha rediscovered the far from exhausted potentialities of the common chord. The new harmonic conception is evident in the extended D major passages of the 'Capriccio' and the sustained Eb of his third Symphony. Nevertheless, Lajtha's is fundamentally a contrapuntal temperament. Even in his early works contrapuntal passages appear frequently, and their neatness and competence of treatment, although embryonic, provide a curious contrast to his harmonic extravagance.
5In his second period horizontal elements dominate the field, manifesting themselves, above all, in the frequency of complete fugues expanding into independent movements, prolonged fugal and imitative passages, and of canonic treatment. The contrapuntal aspect is also evident in his particular treatment of figuration; though obviously instrumental in character, his invention shows a conspicuous melodic shapeliness. The primacy of horizontal values in these works also appears in the contrapuntally conditioned harmony which is derived from the interplay of the various polyphonic strains. In the earlier works of this period the resulting harmony is often bitonal or polytonal: thus in his chamber music with pianoforte, in which this treatment is particularly advantageous owing to the differentiation of colour. In the later works of this period, and also in more recent ones, his return to a simplified harmonic basis resulted in a more euphonious texture (chamber music with harp, 'Capriccio', third string Trio). The vitality of his counterpoint gains a great deal from the energy of his rhythmic drive: derived from folk-music impulses, Lajtha's symphonic music absorbed this element into a "civilized" musical speech much more readily than did Bartók's or Kodály's.
7In his subsequent period the assertion of melodic values is his main concern. Seeking to display them in a suitable formal disposition has prompted him to investigate the designs of Italian and French 17th- and 18th-century composers; the titles of many of his movements — 'Aria', 'Strophes et ritournelles', etc. — indicates this attitude. The conspicuous simplification of musical grammar, concurrently with and in consequence of a superior technical accomplishment, produces in these works an equilibrium between transparency of expression and range of emotional sensibility, between technique and inspiration: a classical art in the truest sense of the word (Symphonies, especially the third, 'Sinfonietta' for strings, third string Trio, second Quartet for harp, violin, viola and cello).
9SCHOLARSHIP.—Lajtha's folk-music investigation included the collecting of melodies from those districts which were left largely untouched by Bartók and Kodály. These explorations yielded many variants of the previously collected material which, together with not a few hitherto unknown tunes, supplemented the work of the two pioneers. Lajtha took a considerable share of the "laboratory work", conducted in the Ethnographical Museum, of transcribing melodies from phonograph recordings preserved there: he has been engaged in this almost continuously from the time of his joining the Society up to the present day. As a delegate of the Hungarian Ethnographical Society he took an active part in the memorable gramophone recording scheme undertaken jointly by the Society and the Hungarian Broadcasting Station in 1937. Among his numerous collecting expeditions those in the 1930s (Great Hungarian Plain and adjoining districts) and during the years 1940-44 (Transylvania) are
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