Mátyás Seiber | |
|---|---|
 Seiber, c. 1935 | |
| Born | 4 May 1905 Budapest, Hungary |
| Died | 24 September 1960 Kruger National Park, South Africa |
| Citizenship | Hungary United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Composer |
Mátyás György Seiber (Hungarian:[ˈmaːcaːʃˈʃaibɛr],[1] sometimes given asMatthis Seyber; 4 May 1905 – 24 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born British composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition ofBartók andKodály, toSchoenberg andserial music, to jazz, folk song, and lighter music.
Seiber was born in Budapest. His mother, Berta Patay was a well known pianist and teacher, so the young Seiber gained considerable skill with that instrument first. At the age of ten, he began to learn to play the cello. After attending grammar school, where he was regarded as "outstanding" in mathematics and Latin according to the almanacs of theFranz Liszt Academy of Music, he studied the cello and composition from 1918 to 1925, and composition withZoltán Kodály from 1921 to 1925. For his degree, he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 (in A minor). Pieces composed at this time, such as theSerenade for Six Wind Instruments of 1925, show him combining traditional Hungarian folk tunes with the forms of Western art music.[2] Seiber submitted his Serenade to a composition contest in Budapest shortly after its completion. When the piece did not win, despite jury memberBela Bartók’s insistence in its superiority to its competition, the famous composer left the jury in protest.[3] Seiber toured Hungary with Zoltán Kodály, collecting folk songs, and built on the research of Kodály and Béla Bartók. He also developed an interest in medievalplainchant.
In 1925, Seiber accepted a teaching position at a private music school. In 1926, he took a position to play the cello in the orchestra of a ship from to North and South America. This was where he became acquainted withjazz.
In 1928 he became director of the jazz department at theHoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, which offered the first academic jazz courses anywhere.[4][5] His text bookSchule für Jazz-Schlagzeug was written in 1929, as a practical summary of his theoretical requirements. Two of his articles of great importance were published in the journalMelos: "Jazz als Erziehungsmittel" (1928) and "Jazz-Instrumente, Jazz-Klang und Neue Musik" (1930). After the jazz department was closed by theNazis in April, 1933, Seiber left Germany. He returned to Hungary but did not settle there.
Seiber emigrated to England in 1935 and settled in London. He only became a British citizen after the war.[6] Seiber taught composition and cello privately while working as a consultant for the subsidiary ofSchott Music in London and composed film music.Michael Tippett invited him to be a professor of composition atMorley College in London, and from 1942 he was on the staff there; he became a teacher ofcomposition, music aesthetics, and music theory. His many students includedDon Banks,John Exton,Peter Racine Fricker, Alan Gibbs,[7]Anthony Gilbert,Stanley Glasser,Michael Graubart,Barry Gray,Karel Janovický,Ingvar Lidholm,Malcolm Lipkin,David Lumsdaine,John McCarthy,John Mayer,Anthony Milner,Peter Schat, Wally Stott (who later becameAngela Morley) andHugh Wood. During this period, he created and trained his choir, the Dorian Singers.
His friendships and work associations embraced many soloists, includingTibor Varga,Dennis Brain,Norbert Brainin, guitaristsJulian Bream andJohn Williams, percussionistJimmy Blades, folk singerBert Lloyd,Max Rostal and tenorPeter Pears.[8]
He was a founder member of theSociety for the Promotion of New Music, actively promoting new music throughout his life.
In 1946 Seiber married themodern dancer Lilla Bauer (1912–2011), another Hungarian émigré.[9][10] She was a lecturer atGoldsmiths’ College in London. They moved out of London toCaterham Surrey, in 1949. They are survived by their daughter Julia Seiber Boyd.[11]
In 1960 Seiber was invited to do a lecture tour in South Africa, but he died there inKruger National Park as the result of a car accident. Kodály dedicated his choral work titledMedia vita in morte sumus to the memory of his former student.
Seiber's music is eclectic in style, showing the influences ofBartók,Kodály,Schoenberg,serialism, jazz, and Hungarian folk song, and his output includes film and lighter music.[12] Often, individual pieces use a combination of these influences. For instance, the twoJazzolettes for wind and percussion (1929 and 1932, composed in Frankfurt) make liberal use of jazz effects and rhythms that displace the bar lines, but also show his first explorations of twelve-note techniques. His wartime,Fantasia concertante for violin and orchestra, premiered in 1945 and recorded byAndre Gertler, and the later workPermutationi a Cinque (1948) for wind ensemble, illustrate Seiber's very free use of serialism.[13]Permutationi a Cinque explicitly uses permutations of motifs that eventually come together to reveal a twelve-tone series - but it is all done with lightness and humour.[2]
Seiber's vocal output includes the large scale cantataUlysses (1947) on words byJames Joyce, another Joyce-related work,Three Fragments from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and choral arrangements of Hungarian andYugoslav folk songs. He also wrote one opera,Eva spielt mit Puppen (1934),[14] and the balletThe Invitation. Other works include the two orchestralBesardo suites,[13] a clarinet concertino, three string quartets, and scores to animated films produced byHalas & Batchelor, includingAnimal Farm (1954).[15] The substantial Sonata for violin and piano, a commission for the Cheltenham Festival, was completed just before his death in 1960.
Two comic operas,A Palágyi Pekek andBalaton, were composed for the Hungarian theatre in London, the "Londoni Pódium".A Palágyi Pékek, (libretto, György Mikes) (1943), was the first collaboration of Mátyás Seiber andGeorge Mikes.Balaton, (libretto, György Mikes) (1944), asGeorge Mikes has reported, was aired during the war by the BBC and, after the end of the war even made it to Budapest.[16]A setting of the Scottish "poet and tragedian"William McGonagall's work,The Famous Tay Whale was written for the second ofGerard Hoffnung's music festivals in 1958.
Seiber used a pseudonym for his jazz works and popular music: G. S. Mathis or George Mathis (a rearrangement of his name using Anglicised forms).[17] In 1957 he was awarded theIvor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "By the Fountains of Rome," which was a hit that year in theUK Single Charts, making it to the Top Twenty. (The lyrics were byNorman Newell, and it was sung byDavid Hughes).[18]
Seiber's compositions at Schott Music[19] and the British Library.[20]
Seiber's compositions and arrangements under the name G. S. Mathis and G. B. Mathis.[24]
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