Bálint Sárosi

The Golden Age of Gypsy Bands in Hungary

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the word 'Gypsy' as used in Hungary and abroad most probably referred to Hungarian Gypsy musicians rather than to the Gypsy ethnic group in general. But why specifically Hungarian Gypsy musicians, since Gypsy musicians lived and worked over the centuries amongst many peoples and do so to this day? Elsewhere, especially in the Balkans, their role in traditional music has been much the same as it has been in Hungary. They played a local repertory of music to meet the tastes of the local population everywhere. Yet, the Romanian, Bulgarian or Serbian traditional instrumental music the Gypsies have played is never called Gypsy music.
"In many places, Gypsies serve but the peasants and the lower ranks with their music," and it is "of little worth," comments the 10 January 1776 issue of the Viennese weekly Anzeigen aus sämtlichen kaiserl. königl. Erbländern. Naturally, such 'worthless' music is not called Gypsy music, even if played by Hungarian Gypsy musicians for Hungarian peasants. Just like the vast majority of documents written on them later, this article is not about Gypsy musicians who play for peasants, but about those musicians who made music for a smaller and more sophisticated audience: the gentry and for the middle classes emerging in ever greater numbers in the century to come. It was these musicians who played 'Gypsy music' and who were for a long time the epitome of 'the Gypsy' in public parlance.
While there were Gypsies playing music in ensembles in earlier centuries too, Gypsy ensembles in the sense we use the phrase today first appeared from the last decades of the eighteenth century onwards. Such ensembles were not a spontaneous initiative on the part of the Gypsy musicians. They were rather part of the reform movements which were aimed at renewing the Hungarian language and endorsing the spread and use of Hungarian dances, music and costumes. For that section of Hungarian society, consciously embracing a modern national culture, the Vienna composers of the classical style, then at its zenith, could have been a musical model to follow. But given the inauspicious historical antecedents, there was no chance of that happening in Hungary within the foreseeable future. Traditional Hungarian instrumental music existed only as 'folk music' and as was mostly performed with any degree of professionalism by Gypsy musicians. They were therefore urged, through education and financial and moral support, to form ensembles (in conformity with the then dominant European taste) and to modify their traditional style and repertory accordingly. Accomplishing this transformation required distancing their music from the unwritten tradition of improvisation and, by this token, drawing nearer to the musical styles then dominant in Europe. It was in this fashion that the music played by Gypsies came to be a modern music of entertainment in Hungary - and an exotic music easily understood and enjoyed abroad.
Playing without scores (a tradition which the musicians have maintained to this day) did much to make audiences identify the music played as their own.
In the last analysis, the reformed music that from the mid-nineteenth century came to be tagged as 'Gypsy music' was the least original Gypsy, or even 'east European' music. What follows here highlights the triumphant period of half a century, when Gypsy ensembles enjoyed exceptional popularity in Hungary and were received with interest and acclaim everywhere abroad.

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The leader (the primás) was the best violinist in the group and held in great respect by the other musicians. This was also reflected financially: in general he had to be paid double the amount the others did. Of the primás active in the 1850s, most praise was accorded to Ferenc Patikárius; on account of his mainly traditional style he was considered a worthy successor to the famous primás and composer of so called verbunkos (recruiting) music, János Bihari, who was active in the early nineteenth century. Little mention is made in the contemporary press of other instrumentalists as band leaders. An exception was a renowned cellist from Nyíregyháza, Károly Fátyol, whose reputation started to grow at the end of that decade and whose devotees took him on a tour of the country where he played mostly as a soloist or was accompanied by a violinist and a violist. No mention was made at all of the accompanying musicians - second violinists, viola player1 and bass player. Special attention was paid to the cymbalist, since good cymbalum-playing was considered "the heart and soul of national music." Foreigners, too, acknowledged mostly the cymbalum-player after the primás.
By the end of the century, family dynasties of musicians had emerged, such as the Berkes's, Berkis, Kóczés, Kozáks, Munczis, Rácz's, Radics's, and Magyaris. Most of them led a life worthy of their standing and did well for themselves, but the majority of average players found it difficult to make ends meet for they were in greater number than needed. In 1892, the town of Balassagyarmat could not support a second first class Gypsy ensemble. In Szeged in the 1890s, two famous and world-touring ensembles were doing well but the others lived from hand to mouth. Those few of them who could read music did some teaching for a living.
It was mainly the hard living, added to the fact that no Gypsy musician likes to undertake work other than making music, that caused altercations amongst them. In the autumn of 1892, local Gypsy musicians in Arad beat up a Gypsy ensemble that had moved there from Gyula and ran them out of town. But those with talent and luck could strike it rich abroad. According to the local paper, Jancsi Kiss and his ensemble from Kaposvár "pocketed loads of dollars" in America in the 1880s. Náci Erdélyi and his band, from Szeged, took home so much money from America in the winter of 1890 - 91 that the double-bassist planned to buy a house and an estate to go with it. Ferdi Lakatos from Komárom reaped a "plentiful gold harvest" in London. For others, sizeable or even fabulous wealth and social ascent came with their marriage abroad. In 1896 - 98 the newspapers wrote extensively about the marriage of the primás Jancsi Rigó to a Belgian countess. Another, Elek Vörös, promised to marry a woman in Paris, who in turn was prepared to divorce her millionaire husband. However, the fairytale came true for none of them. The countess abandoned her Jancsi and the Parisienne who had come to visit Vörös in Hungary, learnt that the man she thought was unattached had a wife and children in the city of Győr.
Rivalry between musicians of equal rank was not rare. In 1850, all three famous Gypsy ensembles, those of Kecskeméti, Patikárius and Sárközi, advertised themselves as "the leading Gypsy band in Pest." Sárközi and his men pasted over the words "leading" on Patikárius's posters. Often the leaders of two ensembles active in the same town challenged one another to 'a duel of bows,' thus to decide which of them was better. The duel was normally fought in a large restaurant in the town, at the head of their respective bands; for the audience the event excited as much interest as a football match would today. The outcome was decided on the basis of the musical programme by the audience. Instead of the gauntlet, the challenger flung words at his rival, mostly in the local paper, describing him as a coward who lacked any sense of music, knew nothing of opera or could not play flageolets. Much to the chagrin of the audience, the advertised duel was often cancelled, because the party challenged backed out; he was either afraid or had no time to prepare and preferred to undertake playing at a wedding for a fee rather than fighting a duel with no remuneration.
The musicians worked mostly without a contract, and collected their fees by passing round the plate. This had the advantage of compelling the guests to be generous enough, since they were ashamed to be seen mean-fisted in public, nor did they want to appear miserly in the eyes of the musicians. Abroad the musicians usually made more money. When, however, the gentlemen of England turned out to have empty pockets, the musicians passed the word on their parsimony from London back to their homeland. The plate that was being sent around was naturally watched by the musicians with lively interest. According to one anecdote, the musician carrying the plate round had to keep a live fly in his palm, which he was to release only after the rest of the band had counted the money on the plate. Even if they travelled abroad under a contract which fixed their fees, the musicians tried to adhere to their right to collect perks freely. On their way to Mexico, the Debrecen musicians received six silver coins each on board every day, and they were also allowed to collect tips.
Traditionally, entertainers such as Gypsy musicians have to cater and adjust themselves directly to the audiences that maintain them. One way for a merry-maker to induce the ensemble to hit upon his favourite tune was to tear in two a thousand pengő note and hand one half to the primás, who would only get the other half when he played the favourite song. At other times, a musician has to comply with the customer's whim by playing on one leg, stopping or starting on request; he is also to bear with the guest setting the tempo or expressing his mirth shouting; he is also expected to show understanding for those revelling 'mournfully,' crying, and throwing their glasses against the wall.

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From the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries on, Gypsy orchestras played an active role in the shaping of modern Hungarian entertainment music. Accordingly, Gypsy musicians who played the verbunkos music (the Hungarian instrumental dance music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, csárdás dance music and Hungarian popular songs, came to be appreciated also as carrying out a patriotic activity. Enthusiasm for their role grew to an extent that some patrons attempted to adjust the Gypsy musicians' past to a 'glorified' past history of Hungary. Since there were Gypsy musicians among the freedom fighters in the 1848 - 49 revolution, their participation was also projected onto an earlier freedom fight, the one led by Prince Francis Rákóczi in 1703 - 11, and they were shown in various roles, such as elevating the spirits of soldiers, consoling and even counselling them. Accordingly, Prince Rákóczi was described as having been surrounded by Gypsy musicians both in Hungary and during his exile in Turkey, though there were in fact none to be found in his escort. Another of the many examples is the imaginary grandfather invented for the first famous Gypsy woman violinist, Panna Czinka (d. 1772), who was said to have been the composer of the Rákóczi Song. Panna Czinka herself came to be described as the "most beautiful Gypsy woman," even though the only authentic account of her, the article in the Anzeigen quoted above, lists her conspicuous physical defects. Even a racist explanation was found why of all the Gypsy musicians, the Hungarians did so well - both Hungarians and Gypsies have Oriental blood in them, no wonder then that their national idiosyncracies are so close.
There were some as early as the 1860s who expressed their doubts concerning the generally held opinion that the achievements of Gypsy musicians could lead to the emergence of a Hungarian musical culture on a par with the European musical tradition. Some bore a grudge against Gypsy musicians, whom they felt were spoilt by the audiences. According to an acrimonious article in the 11 May 1862 issue of Sürgöny, "Owing to the circumstance that fantasy calls them national musicians, Gypsies proudly and consciously blackmail the merry-makers, as though all Gypsy brats were a Paganini, a Lavotta6 or a Bihari." When it came to appreciating them for what they really did with mastery, most famous representatives of classical music took their side. The famous violinist Ede Reményi expressed his sincere admiration in 1860 for the Patikárius band. On the other hand, he who was frequently listed amongst the Gypsy musicians by the romantic dreamers of a Gypsy past, had to say this about the cause of national music:

If we want our national music to be spoken of with respect in educated circles abroad, we must strive, above all, in our homeland to take our fine music out of the hands of the many frothy, chaffy, tastelessly gaudy, dilettantish wild and virtuoso Gypsies, whose style is an affront to a deep sense of beauty, and to elevate it from the stinking morasses of the centuries in which they had sunken and still keep on sinking it through their distorted procedures. Let us stop boasting of it. In other countries music is played in gardens, pubs and in the streets (especially what they call "Garten Musik"), yet no one would think of saying that such catchpenny musical literature was real art.

With the development of Gypsy bands and under the influence of music from the scores, the freedom of earlier improvisational music came to be perceivably limited; yet whenever there was scope for improvisation, musicians achieved great successes with it. This might mostly account for the centuries long popularity of the Rákóczi March in Hungary and abroad. Instead of a final version in which the music would have been fixed from note to note, the musicians played their individual virtuoso versions with improvisations.8 The Gypsy musicians took care, and do so to this day, not to use scores before the audience. Playing from the score would put an end to the magic of their genre - the belief on the part of the audience that the music is played directly for them.
On one hand, the audiences expected an accession to modern European music from the Gypsy bands. On the other hand, however, they required that their music retain its originality. As early as the 1850s, some sensed in their playing "an artful quality brought about under the influence of German masters." In order to learn new pieces from the score for their concerts in Hungary and their tours abroad, they needed musicians who could read the scores. Since they had few members who could do so, often they relied on outside help, either by Hungarian musicians, such as Károly Dobozy, Béni Egressy, Márk Rózsavölgyi and others, or German and Czech theatrical and army musicians. Real 'Gypsy conductors' - musicians who led the rehearsals - came onto the scene as late as the end of the century. The teaching was done from piano scores in general. The 'Gypsy conductor' did not write the parts, he rather divided them up amongst the members, allotting the melody, the bass and the chords, and he taught the musicians how to play these by the ear usually with a violin in his hand. A well-trained band would then know well how the piece should sound.
Musical illiteracy was a characteristic feature not only of the majority of Gypsy musicians but also of the non-Gypsy dilettanti who composed csárdás pieces, a typical nineteenth-century form of Hungarian dance music. The 'whistling' csárdás composer whistled, or the Gypsy musician played on his violin, the tune he had composed, to the score-reading musician who in his turn made a piano version of it with conventional harmonisation. If the composer of the csárdás was also the band-leader, and did not want to get his piece published, which was a rare case, he did not have to recourse to literate help, for his band would shape a finished piece from the simple tune almost at the first hearing, complete with conventional harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment. It is accidental that, of the composers of the original csárdás tunes Brahms had used for his Hungarian Dances, only one was a Gypsy, because there were a lot more Gypsies amongst those composers who turned out the large quantities of csárdás tunes. No self-respecting band-leader could afford not to compose csárdás pieces. It is no wonder then that csárdás pieces were made to pattern by the hundred, one more worthless than the other. On the one entitled "The Hungarian Goodwife's Csárdás," a critic had the following to say in the 30 April 1862 issue of Zenészeti Lapok: "If things go on like this, there will be no object, notable person, idea, sentiment, whatever, which would not merit a tune composed by the csárdás zealots who apparently set it as their aim in life to 'csárdásify' anything they can" - even though in this case the composer, Gusztáv Nyizsnyai, a town clerk, was of the more musically cultured, for he could read and write scores.

Bálint Sárosi
is the author of Gypsy Music, Corvina Press, 1978, and Folk Music: Hungarian Musical Idiom, Corvina Books, 1986. His new book on the history of Gypsy ensembles up to 1903, citing contemporary press reactions to them, will be published by Nap Kiadó.