Ferenc Szabó (27 December 1902,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

4 November 1969, Budapest) was a Hungarian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. As a communist, Szabó was obliged to emigrate through

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

(1931) to the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

(1932). He became a respected figure in Soviet musical life, and found the opportunities to explore common ground between the concert hall and mass music-making on a far higher level. Besides composing a number of mass songs and film scores (notably for

Erwin Piscator Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator (17 December 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a German theatre director and producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of ...

's ''Revolt of the Fishermen'' (1934), and '' Lúdas Matyi'' (1949)), he transcribed the ''Sinfonietta,'' originally for chamber orchestra, for an orchestra of ''domrï'' (plucked folk instruments). He wrote numerous orchestral works as well and one

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

, ''Légy jó mindhalálig'' (1969). He was and remained a committed and staunch Stalinist till the end of his life, and composed many works lauding Soviet premier

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

and his accomplishments. Eventually he fell out of favor with the Hungarian Communist Party after his accusations as an informer during the show trials in Moscow in the 1930s became better known. As a result of his accusations a number of fellow Communist Party members had been executed by Stalin's secret police. He was stripped unceremoniously of all his public posts and died in obscurity; no doubt a better fate than befell the earlier victims of the "

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

Sources

*János Maróthy. ''The

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', edited by Stanley Sadie (1992), and 1902 births 1969 deaths Musicians from Budapest Hungarian opera composers Male opera composers Hungarian communists Hungarian classical composers 20th-century classical composers Hungarian male classical composers 20th-century Hungarian male musicians {{hungary-composer-stub