Hungary has a splendid achievement in the choral development in the 20th century. Because the deep influence of Nationalism and the rising of musicology, the elements of folk music are widely used in the choral compositions. Lajos Bárdos followed the concept of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, using local folk songs as the fundamental material to compose music which can be sung and taught for school and community choirs. Bárdos was one of the choral musicians who had significant positions in the early 20th century in Hungary. He wrote 34 a cappella choral pieces, as well as one accompanied female secular choral work. These pieces are in simple musical form, modal, clearly rhythmic, and displays enriching harmonic color and penetrating style of music. They are appropriate choices for modern choral educators to use. This thesis contains five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction. The second chapter focuses on the background of Hungary: Part One is the brief introduction of the national conditions of Hungary; Part Two is a chronicle of the Hungarian music development, from the very beginning to the 20th century; Part Three briefly discusses composers who made great contribution to choral development and their important compositions. Chapter Three consists of two parts. Part one is a biographic sketch of Bárdos¡¦ life. Part Two introduces the musical characteristic and style of Bárdos¡¦ choral works. Chapter Four analyzes five pieces for women¡¦s chorus-- ¡§High is the Rue Tree¡¨ (Magos a rutafa), ¡§Peak in the Plain¡¨ (Bérc a rónán), ¡§Blow the Pipe¡¨ (Fújd a sípot!), ¡§Sing!¡¨ (Cantemus!), and ¡§the Bride¡¨ (Menyecske). Rehearsal techniques and teaching suggestions are also included in this chapter. Chapter Five draws conclusions from the study. Three appendix are included in this thesis. Appendix A is the phonetic alphabets and phonics rules of Hungarian. Appendix B contains the translation and Hungarian pronunciation of the lyrics of the five analyzed pieces. Different versions of scores, phonographic recordings, and lyrics of Bárdos¡¦ female secular choral works are included in Appendix C.

Psalm 23 is a sacred work in four movements, written for women's chorus (SSAA), a tenor solo and a chamber ensemble consisting of flute, oboe, trumpet, percussion, timpani, and string quartet. It is designed to be performed as a portion of a church service or in concert. The text, Psalm 23 from the Bible is sung in Chinese, and the verses of the Psalm are arranged as follows: Movement 1, Verse 1, General musical characteristics: pastoral; Movement 2, Verses 2-3, General musical characteristics: peaceful; Movement 3, Verses 4-5, General musical characteristics: agitated; Movement 4, Verse 6, General musical characteristics: majestic. The form, tonal structure and harmony of each movement are influenced by the characteristics of an original synthetic scale.