Obituary

Obituary László Dobszay, composer, musicologist, conductor, and liturgical scholar, died on 26 August 2011 at the age of 77. Founder and Professor Emeritus of the Church Music Department of the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy in Budapest, and co-founder of the Schola Hungarica, Professor Dobszay was a strong proponent of both popular sacred music and the propers of the Mass (whether in Latin or the vernacular). His Graduale Parvum (T&T Clark/Continuum, 2011), a Latin-English Gradual for use in parishes, provides a practicable bridge for transitioning from the prevailing practice of singing hymns unrelated to the texts of the liturgy, to the ideal of singing Latin chant from the Graduale Romanum. Pairing the need to be “wise as serpents” with the admonishment to be “innocent as doves” (Mt 10:16), the Hungarian magister researched and promoted sacred chant during the Communist era by representing it as folk music. Two of his book-length studies of the twentieth-century Roman liturgical reforms were translated into English: The Bugnini-Liturgy and the “Reform of the Reform” (Catholic Church Music Associates, 2003; reviewed in Antiphon 9.3 [2005]) and The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite (T&T Clark/Continuum, 2010). His essay, “Perspectives on an Organic Development of the Liturgy,” was featured in Antiphon 13.1 (2009). Professor Dobszay is survived by his wife Klára and their seven children. May choirs of angels accompany him to the incomparable beauty of the heavenly liturgy. ...