Alexander Móži

Prof. PhDr. Alexander Móži, CSc. was an ethnomusicologist, university lecturer, and folk song collector.

In his scholarly and teaching work, he focused on the history of Slovak music, folk songs, historical dances, and the mutual relations in the history of Slovak and Hungarian music. Within the field of music aesthetics, he addressed issues of musical thinking, methods of music analysis with an emphasis on its signification and the process of semantization. He collected folk songs not only from Slovakia but also from Slovaks living in Hungary. He is the author of transcriptions of folk songs and arranged several folk songs compositionally for folklore ensembles and the Slovak Union of Folklore Ensembles (OĽUN).

During his tenure at the conservatory in Topoľčany, he prepared Study Študijné texty k dejinám hudby 1-4 (Texts on the History of Music, Volumes 1–4). He published in various collections and in the journal Slovenská hudba (Slovak Music), including research results from Dražovce following the traces of Béla Bartók (1971, no. 3, pp. 110–117). In cooperation with Ladislav Leng, he prepared the extensive Náuka o slovenskom hudobnom folklóre (Study of Slovak Musical Folklore) (1973). Among his research and collecting studies, notable are Inštrumentálna hudba v Terchovej s transkipciami a analýzou hry terchovských muzikantov (Instrumental Music in Terchová with transcriptions and analysis of the playing style of Terchová musicians), Variačná technika predníkov severnej Oravy, zo Suchej Hory a Hladovky (Variation Technique of the Leaders from Northern Orava, from Suchá Hora and Hladovka, Faculty of Philosophy, Comenius University in Trnava), and Variačná technika primášov zo Spiša (Variation Technique of the Lead Violinists from Spiš, 1984).

He was a member of the Advisory Board for Folk Music of the Cultural Enlightenment Institute in Bratislava (today the National Cultural Centre) and a member of the presidium of the Folklore Music Association, with whom he collaborated on organizing competitions and festival events (Deti deťom, Pri prameňoch krásy, Východná and Detva festivals), and since 1989, Summer Workshops for young lead violinists (Primášikovia, six editions). As a member of the presidium of the Folklore Music Association, he organized seminars on collecting, recording, and publishing folk songs, from which two collections were published (National Cultural Centre, 2004, 2005).

Alongside his scientific, research, collecting, publishing, and teaching activities, he was also active as a performer, a member of the Small Radio Orchestra under the leadership of Tibor Andrašovan, Bartolomej Urbanec, and others. He collaborated with ensembles such as Lúčnica, Technik, Ekonóm, Skaličan, Dargov, Východniar, Čarnica, Liptov, Jánošík, and others.

From 1994 to 2000, Alexander Móži worked in the foreign services of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic as a lecturer of Slovak language and culture in Hungary. He lectured at universities, organized and hosted concerts of Slovak artists in Hungary, and was also the author of radio programs about Slovak music for the Slovak editorial office of the Szeged Radio.