Székely fonó

[2] First created in 1924 as a short cabaret with a small accompanying orchestral ensemble, Kodály expanded the work, with mime but without dialogue for a full production at the Royal Hungarian Opera House, Budapest in 1932.

[3] The work came a year after Kodály's first major success with Psalmus Hungaricus, and along with the Székely folk material contains "lush chromaticism and rigorous contrapuntal devices".

[3] It was the first Hungarian operatic work to be produced in Italy (as La Filanda Magiara) in Milan on 14 January 1933, and was broadcast from London on 26 May 1933 with the composer conducting.

Women and girls from the village enter in the third scene, attend to chores around the spinning room and a young woman sings a lively song of their life with so many men absent from home.

The fifth scene involves a young man Lázlós singing to his mother that he is dying of heartache, and there follows a traditional folk-song of spinning gold and silver, and the ballad ‘Ilona Görög’ (Helen).

Kodály wrote of the beauty and variety of Hungarian folk songs "like jewels sparkling in a strange, ancient fire"; these form the thread of the work, while his accompaniments are "full of colour, lush chromaticism and contrapuntal effects based on close canon and imitation".