Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1978. július-december (32. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)
1978-11-02 / 42. szám
Thursday, Nov. 2. 1978. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO_________________________________ 9 GIPSY MUSIC - a scholarly study THE STORY OF MY LIFE BY ALBERT SZENTGYÖRGYI II. HOW WORLD WAR I. STARTED Before going on I would like to discuss that war briefly, because the present situation is very similar to that which brought about this war. In those days the Austro-Hungarian empire, which included present Czechoslovakia and part of Poland, was. very powerful and rich. South of it lay Serbia, a small mountainous and poor country, the only exportable product of which was hogs, which could be transported only over Hungary, Serbia being separated from the sea by mountains. The Austro-Hungarian empire cut off this lifeline by forbidding export through Hungary. The Serbs became resistive. To intimidate them» our army organized big military exercises at their border, and to make these more impressive, our archduke attended them with his wife. While driving through Sarajevo, a Serbian student shot them both. This was a most welcome opportunity for the militarist cliques in Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. A war is the most desirable condition for generals, politicians, and suppliers of the army. So my government served an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia. But war could be declared only by the emperor who was an old man and wanted to die in peace. To solve this difficulty, our secretary of defense, Count Berchtold, put before the emperor fake telegrams according to which the Serbian army broke into Hungary. This left no alternative to the emperor, he had to mobilize. Berlin followed suit and so did the Russian Czar, and World War I was on. It is said that wars are due to the bloodthirsty nature of man. This is a lie. The reason for World War I was the existence of small groups which profited by the war. This is how it was, how it is, and how it will be, while what great masses of men want is only to live and let live. I was a fairly wealthy boy, but the war left me poor, without knowledge, with a wife and a child, and a burning desire to become a scientist. I accepted an assistantship at the pharmacological institute of the newly founded university of Pozsony, the coronation city of Hungary. But scarcely had we established the laboratory, than the treaty of Versailles gave the city to Czechoslovakia, and we had to clear out. Although endangering our lives we managed to smuggle out our scientific instruments and sent them down the Danube to Hungary. Finding my country destroyed, I sent my wife and child to her parents and went myself to Prague where Armin von Taschermak developed the capillary electrometer. From there I went to Berlin to learn pH from Michaels. He was a wonderful scientist, but being a Jew he could not get a decent job in imperial Berlin. He shared with me his laboratory at a hospital. Both of us like to walk up and down, but the laboratory was so small that we could do this only in turns. From Berlin I went to Hamburg to the Institute of Tropical Hygiene. I did this with the idea that learning tropical diseases I had a chance to become a doctor in the tropical colonies. When my resources gave out, I bought a tropical outfit. The Dutch Physiological Society happened Musicologist Balint Sarosi was the first and the only one who decided to study the popular music of gipsies with their unique style of playing, in a study of scholarly thoroughness. The book was originally published by the Gondolat Publishing House in 1971; it analyzed gipsy music in Hungary in a multifarious manner, displaying considerable theoretical knowledge and practical ability. The book attracted interest, not only in Hungary, but also abroad. This inspired Corvina to publish the work in German, and next in English. Who are the gipsies, how did they get to Hungary, what did they bring from the Orient, do they have an independent folk music, and if they have, how different is it from the Hungarian style music played by gipsies, or how similar is it to Hungarian folk music? These thoughts alone are sufficient to arouse interest. Gipsy folk songs came into fashion with the “new wave” in ethnographical scholarship: Sarosi supplemented his analysis with aural material contained in a recently released gipsy folk music record anthology. According to him in addition to its characteristically individual features, original gipsy folk music is strongly affected by Hungarian folk music and is inseperable from the tune material in whose vicinity it exists. „ However gipsy music is not identical with the music played by gipsies, naturally the book deals less with the latter. His questions and the answers to hold its annual meeting in Hamburg. Storm van Leeuven, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Leiden, attended the meeting with his assistant, Professor Jr. Verzar; an outstanding Hungarian physiologist, who intended to return to Hungary and recommended me for his successor. So I became Assistant Professor in Pharmacology in Leiden where, at nights, I began to muddle with chemistry, Storm van Leeuven was a queer fellow. Before becoming a sicentist he was captain of the hussars. My wife was very beautiful, which made the situation untenable. Thus I resigned and went to Groningen, North Holland, with the intent of passing the doctor’s exam and then going to the Dutch colonies. (to be continued) are exciting because they bring an earlier neglected musical phenomenon into tangible distance. Using a historic method, Sárosi follows the style of the famous 18th and 19th century gipsy musicians in Hungary: Panna Czinka and János Bihari, and explains what became national values in their presentation; he explains the significance of recruit* ment music; he expounds the secret of the unparah leled popularity of gipsy musicians, the reason why such a great number of listeners admired them and what was so highly appreciated in their interpretál tion by Ferenc Liszt, Bela Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Sarosi does not consider the proportion of folk elements as decisive in the evaluation of Hun-; garian songs, he examines the artistic beauty and; authenticity. He knows that not only folk songs influenced the songs, but that the folksy composed songs of the past century also left their imprint on Hungarian folk music. The function of gipsv music, namely, music-making in restaurants is discussed with sociological deliberation, and he points out the difference between the music-making of bands living among the peasants and playing for rural audiences, and that of the urban bands. The text is supplemented with literary quotations, with score examples, photographs, paintings, and drawings, placing gipsv music into the body of Hungarian music culture. Mária Feuer i I' ?*•••••••••••••••• CHRISTMAS BAZAAR j Sunday, November 19th, 11 AM to 5 PM there will be a Christmas Bazaar at the Stuyvesant • Park YMCA /St. Georges Parish House/ 207 • j • E 16 St. New York,NY. /near Third Ave./ spon- • i • sored by the Hungarian Culture Club. You J • will be able to purchase beautiful imported j { • embroidered Hungarian blouses, Hungarian pottery, records, books and many bargains. Home-cooked meal .coffee and cake will be served. Admission free!--------------•••••••••••••••••---------------------
