The period from 1948 to his death in 1967 was for Kodaly about reaping the fruits. He was a Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Chairman from 1946 to 1949. He received three Kossuth Awards (1948, 1952, 1957), as doctor honoris causa degrees from the universities of Oxford (1960), East Berlin (1964) and Toronto (1966) and honorary memberships from a number of academies around the world. He was made president of the International Folk Music Council in 1961 and honorary memberships from a number of academies around the world. He was made president of the International Society of Music Education in 1964. Two years before his death, in 1965, he received the Herder Prize. He travelled extensively between1960 and 1966, chairing conferences, lecturing throughout Europe in English, German, French and Italian. He lived to see his ambitious plans be accomplished. Edited by Kodaly, the first firve volumes of Magyar Nepzene Tara came out between 1950 and 1967 and at the same time daily music classes based o the Kodaly method were introduced in 120 schools. In the last twenty years of his life his compositional spirit never flagged either; he wrote masterpieces including Hymn of Zrinyi, Mohacs and Laudes organi, and completed Symphony, begun back in the Thirties and previered in 1961 under the baton of Ferenc Fricsay. |
