Zoltán Farkas
The Redemption of Instrumental Folk Music
Bálint Sárosi: A hangszeres magyar népzene
(Hungarian Instrumental Folk Music), Budapest, Püski, 1996. 264 pp.
What has always attracted me have been long neglected topics, problems
that appear insoluble, blank spots which musicologists accept as donné
forever,"1 begins one of Pál Péter Domokos' books. These
words could well serve as Bálint Sárosi's epigraph. For Sárosi's
chosen field is indeed one which older ethnomusicologists, including the
very best in the profession, had deliberately avoided. Over the years,
instrumental folk music was the Cinderella of Hungarian ethnomusicology.
Although both Bartók and Kodály registered much instrumental
music as well as folk songs, which they fully exploited in their own compositions,
as ethnographers they were always wary of it. While the primacy of vocal
music cannot be doubted in Hun garian folk music, and Sárosi demonstrates
the reasons for this, expressly instrumental music did not really fit into
the conceptions which Bartók's and Kodály's generation held
on peasant traditions.
Instrumental music was played by men whose bread and butter it was.
Their music was not a spontaneous manifestation of the spirit but was performed
for a consideration. The musicians also differed from the peasantry in
both status and life style. In the eyes of Bartók and Kodály
the grave sin of these professionals--mostly Gypsies since the end of the
18th century--was that they served fashion and the entertainment of those
who paid them, intruding--as they saw it--a decadent, worth less, more
recent urban repertoire into authentic folk culture. This led to Kodály's
summary judgement: "The ethnographical value of the Gypsy musician
consists in what he knows over and above the song and dance music of the
towns."2 Bartók, similarly, filtered off the peasant
strata from the tunes played by Gypsy musicians and declared these to be
solely worthy of study.
Processing this cleansed and selected repertoire met with numerous technical
difficulties. For a start, getting the score of an ensemble, or even the
playing of a single fiddle, down on paper with some degree of precision
was much more complicated than noting down even the most involved vocal
tune. Fortunately, the country was not short of highly skilled ethnomusicologists
to carry this out but, compared to vocal melodies, fitting the treasury
of instrumental music into a consistent and logical classification proved
to be extraordinarily difficult. Not even László Lajtha,
a pioneer of this field, who turned field recordings of instrumental music
into scores that go into microscopic details, was prepared to provide an
analysis of his data or to clarify theoretical questions.
A new impetus was given by the post-Second-World-War study of Hungarian
folk dance, for which a high standard was set by György Martin. At
the same time, a start was made on systematic research into the historical
sources of dance tunes, primarily by Pál Péter Domokos (18th
century) and Ervin Major and Géza Papp (verbunkos). Soon Bálint
Sárosi himself put in an appearance. Looking back from 1997, it
would appear that all his earlier work led up to the great summing up,
to his magnum opus, this present book.
Research into instrumental folk music and into the instruments used
for its performance were interdependent and Sárosi's own first works
to achieve international acclaim concerned instruments. His book on Hungarian
folk instruments was the first in a series of handbooks initiated by the
International Council of Folk Music,3 later to be reworked as
a textbook on Hungarian folk instruments.4 The late Benjámin
Rajeczky, the doyen of Hun garian musicologists, praised the author "as
an outstanding instrumentalist and collector, who discussed instrumental
music and instruments, their function and their social context as well
as their history, thereby providing thorough information on these neglected
fields that was many-sided and comprehensive and which also went into a
great deal of technical detail."5 Sárosi's other
major line of research concerned the instrumental performers, the Gypsies,
who made up the majority of those professional musicians whose livelihood
came from folk music. His Gypsy Music6 relied on a wealth of
historical sources and on sensitive sociological observations. He examines
the role of Gypsy musicians, confronting myths based on no foundation with
the facts.7 In 1980 Sárosi selected three LPs worth of
music from the instrumental tradition by making use of the documentary
recordings of the Hun garian Academy of Sciences.8 In the eighties,
he produced a great deal in periodical publications on folk musicians who
made a living as performers and those who did not, on links between instrumental
and vocal folk music and on the influence of instrumental folk music on
Haydn and Kodály. In 1988 he edited and prepared for press an important
collection of instrumental music by László Lajtha.9
A series of articles10 on analysing and systematizing instrumental
music has preceded his most recent book, which is a summary of individual
research over several decades in a field uncovered both in or outside Hungary.
Sárosi's conclusion is that the typology of vocal folk music cannot
be applied to the instrumental repertoire: classificiation must follow
from the instrumental music itself. Presenting the premises and methods
for classification is an important--but not the only--novelty in the book.
An immediacy which springs from the experience of field work, intimate
familiarity with folk instruments, the presentation of the sociological
background and of the environment within which folk instrumentalists live
and work, as well as a sure hand in classification and the analysis of
tunes, result in a work which poses just about every question that matters
for the study of Hungarian instrumental folk music.
When considering a definitive book which aspires to be both theoretical
and descriptive, we must first ask how the author defines the limits of
his field. Where, for instance, should we draw the boundary between traditional
peasant music and folksy music-making in towns? According to Sárosi,
we must "think in terms of the tradition as a whole, even if we only
pass judgement on instrumental folk music in the strict sense of the term."
The first part of the book (The Musician and His Public) surveys the social
statusofo player -performers, including Gypsy musicians in towns. A colourful
music making scene is brought to life in these chapters, and we can only
be grateful that the author has cast his net wide. In discussing the music
as such, however, (The Stock of Tunes and Style) Sárosi is concerned
with peasant music in the narrow sense, as defined by Bartók and
Kodály. It is in these chapters that he discusses and classifies
the tunes listed in the Compendium of Examples. Another question that could
not be dodged is that of the borderline between vocal and instrumental
music. Here too Sárosi's decision derives from the nature of the
material. Music of vocal origin syllabized as if sung and played by amateur
instrumentalists does not belong to the context of this book, tunes whistled,
hummed or sung, however, in keeping with an instrumental style, that is
sung performances that mimic instruments fall, according to their function
and musical characteristics, within the purview of the book. The third
major unit (Melodic Draft and the Finished Piece), looks into the ways
in which musical units dissected for the purposes of classification, function
when performed as large form. It is here that numerous procedures (improvisation,
tune extension, accompani ment, embellishments, harmonization, &c.)
are described, which did not fit into the stylistic classification of tunes
but which are nevertheless an organic part of the performed reality of
instrumental folk music. The Compendium of Musical Examples which accounts
for around half the book (almost 800 items), presents tunes in a "notation
much like slides prepared for the microscope" and not as comprehensive
scholarly scores. The essential elements thus highlighted, the Compendium
serves to illustrate and support the author's line of thought. The Appendix
to the Com pen dium, however, contains some complete pieces, including
the complete scores for all the the members in the performing ensemble.
A piece implies the cycle as a whole since, as Sárosi sees it, instrumental
music must be examined as large form (Grossform). The Compendium is made
accessible by carefully prepared indexes: a list of sources, a toponym
index, an index according to function and list of cadences.
The first chapter (What Kind of Man Makes Music for a Living?) of the
first part (The Musician and his Public) argues--spanning great distances
in space and time--that those who made music for a consideration were always
outsiders in relation to the public whom they served. They were not only
aliens but also subject to taboos of sorts and even regarded as "unclean".
Sárosi cites numerous superstitions connected with musicians to
make this point. He describes other trades and crafts Gypsy musicians had
to engage in to eke out their income, and at this point recounts the instruments
favoured by non-Gypsy peasants. The chapter One Per form er, Several Performers;
Peasant Player--Gypsy Play er discusses the distribution of various instruments,
the periods when they flourished and declined, fashions in instruments
and the way the combinations altered, all the way from the fiddle-gardon
(a violoncello used as a percussion instrument) duo, through the "classical"
quartet (fiddle, second fiddle, double bass, cimbalom) to the hugely enlarged
Gypsy orchestras of the 19th and 20th centuries. He dates the switch from
bagpipe music, which earlier had the definitive role, to the fiddles which
took over from it. He uses a wealth of sources, including literary, but
also 16th- and 17th-century political broad sheets, early Hungarian memoirs,
the accounts of English travellers, and, of course, the entire literature
of the subject.
Scholarly works seldom offer catharsis but Sárosi's book is one
of the rare exceptions. The chapter which takes my particular fancy is
the one entitled Entertainer and Plaything. This is not only sociology
of music at its best but displays a fine sensibility, an understanding
not only of musicians ready to provide anything that was wanted if the
price was right,and even how the instinct to dominate got the upper hand
in those who paid for the tune that diverted them. Stories of practical
jokes played, for instance that of the fiddler let down into the well,
so that his fright would give an extra edge to his bitter-sweet playing
of a lamenting song, tell us much about the social psychology of a by-gone
age. Nor does he leave out tales of the luxuries Gypsy musicians indulged
in, of the adulation some of them received, and of the rivalry between
stars of the cafés, their competitions, or what were called "duels
of the strings". Sárosi's narrative is backed by facts and
figures, and by more than thirty well-chosen photographs.
The chapter Gypsy Musicians--Hun garian Traditions has most to say about
an old and stubbornly surviving misapprehension, which not-so-well informed
authors abroad cherish. Sárosi repeatedly refers to this errror
which, lately, has here and there again raised its ugly head even in ethnomusicological
writings.11 Some people consider the music played by Gypsy musicians
over the past two centuries to be Gypsy music. In fact it is the Hungarian
popular art music of its time, the so called "nóta". Sárosi
points to the paradox that what some people abroad, who ought to know better,
stubbornly describe as Gypsy music "could in fact be taken to be the
most nationally Hungarian part of the Hun garian music tradition, since
it was produced by the Hungarian national movement." Sárosi
provides an outline history of the Gypsies in Hungary, and historical data
concerning Gypsy musicians as further evidence. These are data on the presence
of Gypsies in Hungary (as in other countries in Europe) going back to the
fifteenthth century, but Gypsy musicians are really only in evidence since
the eighteenth. Magyarized Gypsy musicians were prominent in the renewal
of the musical idiom which took place in Hungary around the year 1800.
They, however, did not create this new repertoire, they merely played it.
How Were the Musicians Trained, the closing chapter of the first part,
demonstrates in detail that Gypsy musicians were indeed highly trained
and that some Gypsy musicians were also teachers.
While what Sárosi has to say in the way of the sociology of music
and of history is of general interest, the middle section, (Stock of Tunes
and Style) is addres sed to musicologists. He makes a number of methodological
points of basic importance which are a distillation of his long experience
in the field. He draws attention to the limitations in using methods developed
in the study of vocal music when dealing with the more heterogeneous instrumental
material, stressing that the definition of criteria for a typology will
have to be carried out later. Sárosi establishes his own signposts
to serve as a guide in the instrumental repertoire. His approach to tune
kinship, styles and types is via twin bars, the smallest recognizable units.
This prompts him to divide the repertoire into three large groups: a twin-bar
layer, pairs of lines, and the strophic material.
This is not the place for a summing up of all the contributions to musicology
which this book contains. There is much which offers food for thought and
which is controversial. Systematic adherence to the logic of classification
sometimes places tunes that belong together in separate categories, although
Sárosi refers to the existing kinship in every case. I personally
would like to see the same tunes published in another classification as
well, in which pairs of lines and strophes that belong together would appear
next to each other, but limitations on space make, I know, such a dual
arrangement impossible in a work of this sort. Though Sárosi repeatedly
draws attention to the temporary nature of his classification, the Compen
dium of Musical Examples does indeed provide a genuine picture of the tunes
and their interrelations. Ethnomusicologists are provided with an extensive
base--and inspiration--for further research. Histo rians of music will
be particularly interested in references to the "Hungarian" elements
in Haydn's music. (I doubt if there is more on this subject anywhere else.)
Sárosi's discussion of terminological questions is a model of its
kind. He deals in detail with the meanings of terms current in Hungary--such
as aprája, dimi nu tio, division, figura, cifra and their equivalents
abroad. He never loses sight of the function of the tunes, something that
is an even more important point d'appui for instrumental than for vocal
music. He pays attention to the notion of a variant and notes that "unfortunately,
we know hardly anything about the criteria on the basis of which performers
of traditional music think of a tune as identical with another or different
from it." This is a field, however, where many younger ethnomusicologists
have already had important things to say.12
The early appearance of this book in English, German and other languages
is highly desirable. Hungarian Instrumental Folk Music is a major step
in the exploration of a long neglected field.
NOTES
1 Pál Péter Domokos: Hangszeres magyar tánc
zene a XVIII. században (Hungarian Instru mental Dance Music in
the 18th century), Budapest, Aka dé miai Kiadó, 1978.
2 Zoltán Kodály: A magyar népzene (Hun garian
Folk Music), (First Ed.: 1937), Budapest, Zenemûkiadó, 1976,
in English: Folk Music of Hungary, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1960,
p. 111.
3 Bálint Sárosi: Die Volksmusikinstrumente Un garns.
Handbuch der europäischen Volksmusik inst ru mente, Serie I, Band
1., Institut für deutsche Volks kunde Berlin, Leipzig, VEB Deutscher
Verlag für Mu sik, Stockholm, Musikhistorisches Museum, 1967, 147
pp.
4 Bálint Sárosi: Magyar népi hangszerek. (Hungarian
Folk Instruments), Budapest, Tan könyv kiadó, 1973, 116 pp.
5 Benjamin Rajeczky: in the Preface to the above, p. 5.
6 Bálint Sárosi: Gypsy Music, Budapest, Cor vina, 1978.
7 For example, erroneous statements appeared in Liszt's scandalous
1859 book on Gypsy music, (Des bohémiens et de leur musque en Hongrie).
8 Hungarian Instrumental Folk Music from the Collection of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. Ed. by Bálint Sárosi. Budapest, Hungaroton
LPX 18045-47, 1980.
9 László Lajtha: Instrumental Music From West ern Hungary.
From the Repertoire of an Urban Gypsy Band. Studies in Central and Eastern
Euro pean Music, 3. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1988.
10 "A hangszeres magyar népi dallam" (Hun garian
Instrumental Folk Tune) In: Magyar Zene, 1987: 335-378; 1988: 28-42, 197-218,
237-2550, 351-378; 1989: 115-135, 250-274; 1991: 266-283, 374-385; 1992:
56-65, 241-256 pp.
11 Bálint Sárosi: "Párizsi ítélet:
a magyar népies zene a cigányoké". (Judgement
of Paris: Hungarian popular music belongs to the Gypsies), a sharp critique
of the pseudo-scientific articles of Alain Antonietto and Patrick Williams.
In: Muzsika, 1997, March, 3-6 pp. For an English version of this, see pp.
133- 139 in the present issue of The Hungarian Quarterly.
12 For example, István Pávai of the Budapest Museum
of Ethnology and the Institute for Musico logy has much of interest to
say on what folk musicians think about their own music.
Zoltán Farkas,
a research fellow at the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences, specializes in 18th-century church music in Hungary and in
contemporary Hungarian music.
