Malcolm Hayes is enthralled by a Hungarian folk hero’s swashbuckling tales as he searches out the best recordings of Kodály’s Háry János orchestral suite

By Malcolm Hayes

Published: Friday, 18 August 2023 at 12:49 PM


Who was Háry János?

There is flaky historical evidence that he may actually have existed – an army veteran of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s sequence of (usually losing) Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century. He then evidently became a local hero by regaling listeners with his extremely tall stories of his (always winning) exploits against the enemy, enabling the triumph of his Hungarian homeland and people.

A guide to Kodály’s Háry János orchestral suite

Háry János duly became the subject – a situation of which he would doubtless have approved – of an opera based on his legendary tales. Composed by Zoltán Kodály, it was premiered at Budapest’s Hungarian Opera House in 1926 and quickly became a much-loved cultural icon of the newly independent Hungarian nation. It has remained so ever since.

Kodály prefaced the score with his own take on the would-be national hero he immortalised in his opera, and in the orchestral suite he extracted from the score a year later.