Matyas Seiber

Mátyás György Seiber (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈmaːcaːʃ ˈɟørɟ ˈʃɛjbɛr]; 4 May 1905 – 24 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of Bartók and Kodály, to Schoenberg and serial music, to jazz, folk song, film and lighter music.

Seiber was born in Budapest. His mother, Berta Patay was a reputable pianist and teacher, so the young Seiber gained considerable knowledge on that instrument first. At the age of ten, he began to learn to play the cello. After attending the grammar school, where he was regarded as 'outstanding' in Mathematics and Latin, according to the almanacs of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music between 1918 and 1925 he studied cello and composition, 1921-1925 composition with Zoltán Kodály. As a degree work, he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 (in A minor).

He toured Hungary with Zoltán Kodály, collecting folk songs, and built on the research of Kodály and Bartók, providing the vocal setting of many nations’ folksongs. He developed his interest in medieval plainchant as well.

In 1925, Seiber accepted a teaching position at a private music school in Frankfurt. In 1926, he made an unexpected decision: he hired himself on a ship that was voyaging to North and South America to play the cello in its orchestra. There he became acquainted with the music of "black America": jazz.

In 1928 he became director of the jazz department at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, which offered the first academic jazz courses anywhere. He considered reaching disengaged and free rhythm as a destination of studies. It is necessary to be instructed – as he writes – as the art music of the twentieth century requires proficiency in rhythm largely (mentioning the music of Stravinsky, Bartók and Hindemith as examples). His text book Schule für Jazz-Schlagzeug was written in 1929, that is a practical summary of his theoretical requirements. Two of his articles of great importance were published in the journal Melos: "Jazz als Erziehungsmittel" (1928) and "Jazz-Instrumente, Jazz-Klang und Neue Musik" (1930). After the jazz department was closed by the Nazis in 1933, Seiber left Germany.

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