ERKEL, Ferenc 1810-1893

Bánk Bán. Opera három felvonásban. Szövegét Katona József drámája után irta: Egressy Béni ... Zenéjét átdolgozta: Rékai Nándor. Szövegét átdolgozta: Nádasdy Kálmán és Oláh Gusztáv. A zongorakivonatot átnézte: Kenessey Jenő. [Piano-vocal score]

Budapest: Zeneműkiadó Vállalat [PN Z. 1000], 1957.

Folio. Original full light green cloth with titling gilt to upper and spine. 5ff. (titles, foreword, cast list, contents), 3-215, [1] (colophon) pp. With appendix ([24] pp; musical variants by Kenessey) laid in. Parallel texts in Hungarian and German.

Binding slightly worn and bumped. Slightly browned.

First Edition of the 1939 revised version.

Bánk Bán, to a libretto by Béni Egressy after the play by József Katona, was first performed in Pest at the National Theater on March 9, 1861.

The music was completely revised in 1939 by conductor and composer Nándor Rékai (1870-1943), incorporating a new libretto by Kálmán Nádasdy and Gusztáv Oláh. Further refinements were made in 1953 by Jenő Kenessey, who made the piano reduction; this is the only version that is recorded and widely performed.

"With its strongly national theme, its critical timing in relation to political events, and its readiness to draw on the world of folk melody and the formal principles of the Hungarian verbunkos, Bánk bán represents an important stage in the development of Hungarian opera. It is widely regarded as the most significant Hungarian opera of its time, for although not as widely popular in Hungary as Hunyadi László, it shows a broader command of dramatic characterization and greater skill in accommodating a national idiom. As the fruit of many years of idiomatic development, Bánk bán represents a high point in Erkel’s output; his development thereafter took different directions and he never again succeeded in writing with such naturalness and vitality." Dezső Legány in Grove Dictionary of Opera.

Item #31621

Price: $75.00  other currencies