Music - Budapest - page 420

Imre Kálmán (1882-1953) is Hungary's most celebrated composer of operettas. The
Gypsy Princess and Countess Mariza are two of his most popular works and standard fare at
the Budapest Operetta. Hungarian by birth but settling in Vienna in his late 20s, Franz (Fer-
enc) Lehár (1870-1948) is also famous for his operettas, the most successful of which was
The Merry Widow . It opened at the Magyar Színház (Hungarian Theatre, now the National
Theatre) in November 1906 and ran for more than 100 performances.
In Anthony Minghella's filmThe English Patient(1996), when László Almásy (Ralph Fi-
ennes) plays a Hungarian folk song on the phonograph for Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott
Thomas), we hear Márta Sebestyén singing 'Szerelem, Szerelem' (Love, Love). Sigh.
Folk Music
It is important to understand the differences between the various types of folk music you
might hear in Hungary, especially between Hungarian folk music and so-called Gypsy mu-
sic.
Gypsy Folk Music
Gypsy music as it is known and heard in Hungarian restaurants from Budapest to Boston is
urban schmaltz and based on rousing recruitment marching tunes called verbunkos, played
during the Rákóczi independence wars. For a century the international acclaim afforded the
verbunkos eclipsed all other forms of traditional Hungarian folk music. At least two fiddles,
a bass and a cymbalom (a curious stringed instrument played with sticks) are de rigueur in
'Gypsy' music. You can hear this saccharine music at hotel restaurants throughout Budapest
or get hold of a recording by Sándor Déki Lakatos, the sixth band leader from the famous
Lakatos musical dynasty.
Hungarian Folk Music
Hungarian folk musicians play violins, zithers, hurdy-gurdies, pipes, bagpipes and lutes on a
five-tone diatonic scale; this makes it quite different from the Italian and German music that
dominated the rest of Europe and not to everyone's taste (at least at first). Attending a
táncház (literally 'dance house' though really folk-music and dance workshops) is an excel-
lent way to hear the music and even to learn to dance. It's all good fun and they're easy to
find in Budapest, where the dance-house revival began.
Watch out for Muzsikás, Márta Sebestyén, Ghymes (a Hungarian folk band from
Slovakia) and the Hungarian group Vujicsics, which mixes elements of South Slav and Hun-