Biography
Ferenc Erkel was born in 1810 in Gyula into a Danube Swabian musical family and received his musical training partly at the Benedictine grammar school in Pressburg under Heinrich Klein. From 1838 he served for more than 35 years as first Kapellmeister at the Hungarian Theatre in Pest, later the National Theatre, where he built up its orchestra and chorus, and in 1853 he founded the Philharmonic Society. In 1844 he set Ferenc Kölcsey's poem 'Himnusz' to music, a setting that remains the Hungarian national anthem to this day. With the operas 'Bátori Mária' (1840), 'Hunyadi László' (1844) and 'Bánk bán' (1861) he established Hungarian national opera, blending elements of verbunkos music with the forms of Italian and French opera. From 1875 to 1887 he also served, alongside Franz Liszt, as the first director of the newly founded Academy of Music in Budapest. Erkel died in Budapest in 1893.
On Stagelog
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