Paksa Katalin - Németh István: Muravidéki magyar népzene (Budapest - Lendva, 2018)
A régió népzenéjéről
ABOUT THE FOLK MUSIC OF THE REGION 51 musical feeling of the peasants” applies to them, and “the definition ignores the question of origin - whether they originate from known or anonymous composers, whether they were passed on by some other social class, e.g. the urban class” (Bartók 1924, V). Peasant usage polishes, modifies these tunes, adapting them to their traditional taste. For instance, the modem minor scale may turn pentatonic during folklorisation (line III of 108, lines II—III of 113, lines I and IV of 131). By contrast, songs that are widely sung but their art-music origin is still strongly manifest despite their formal identity with new-style tunes are omitted from the book. Such are, e.g., four songs with broken diminished triads (at the beginning of the strophe: AP 7014e, or at the end of line III: AP 6970/;, AP 6971/;), a soldier’s song with a broken dominant seventh chord (DAT 225 02), two broadsheet ballads whose tunes are also based on functional melody writing (AP 7012e and DAT228 02, similar: Horváth 1992, 187/d, as well as DAT 22514, similar: Horváth 1992 187a). Fully-fledged new style (and related) tunes (134-210) They constitute the most vigorously alive stratum of the tradition; these tunes were the first to come forth during collecting sessions. Particularly favoured are the soldier’s songs. Their popularity is not surprising, for army service, young people from different comers of the country being garrisoned together, also singing together, played a great role in the unfolding and rapid spreading of the new style (cf. Szalay 2010,73-82). The songs were entertainment, it was easier to march to them, and far-away from home they reminded them of the sweetheart, the family left at home and alleviated homesickness. The texts of the soldier’s songs mention places of recruitment, the Korona restaurant in Lendva, the barracks in Kanizsa and Monostor, Kassa, Galicia, the Russian front, Doberdo, Italy. Usually they were sung by men including 81-year-old József Gazdag, whose savoury, lively performance demands special attention, just as Ferenc Biro’s snapping vivid rhythm. The paraphrase of a soldier’s song is A léndvaji szvéttérgyár, dőljön lé a teteje [Sweater factory of Lendva, may its roof collapse] (193). The original text is about the roof of the barracks and the letters of Hungarian hussars. The number of syllables often fluctuates in new-style songs. When only the lyrics are read, they can be found clumsy, wobbly. In singing, excess syllables do not cause differences in time length because due to rhythm diminution-contraction so gladly applied in this style, texts of different length can be arranged in identical time intervals (e.g. 153, 180, 184-186, 206). The result is variety, liveliness. Let us mention at this point the change of meter in several Mura region songs, which also lends pleasing animation to the performance (e.g. 4/4 alternating with 2/4: 149, 150, 157-159, 171-175, 189-195, 198-200; 3/4 alternating with 2/4: 110, 112, 121, 122). There are some archaic or peculiar features in the tonalities of the new style. One is the use of some “defective scales” (e.g., omitting the sixth: 153, omitting the third: 156). Sometimes the scale of a single tune may be of two kinds: the outer lines are of
