IV
It may appear surprising at first that Hungary, a thousand-year-old nation, has not until our own day achieved an independent cultural existence, and more especially an individual musical art. For we know that the Magyar race is inherently musical and recent researches have unearthed unsuspected treasures of folk-song as ancient as they are characteristic. There has indeed been for some time a recognized Hungarian 'flavor' utilized in the manner of an exotic by various composers, notably Brahms and Liszt, and the dance rhythms so utilized have proved no less fascinating than those of the Slavs, for instance. But native Hungarian composers have not until recently developed these artistic germs with sufficient ability to arouse the attention of the musical world.
When we consider the political condition of Hungary during its long history, however, we no longer wonder at the dearth of national culture. Twice the country was utterly desolated, for ages the people possessed no political independence, no constitution, and did not use their own language—indeed their native tongue was suppressed by a tyrannical government until late in the nineteenth century. With the recrudescence of national independence there came, as elsewhere, a revival of nationalistic culture, and it is nothing short of remarkable that within hardly more than a generation Hungary has raised itself, in music especially, to a point where its own sons are capable of brilliant and characteristically native achievement. At any rate it argues eloquently for the profound musical and poetic instincts which were latent in the race.
A brief historical review of early musical endeavor in Hungary may not be without value as an introduction to our treatment of its modern composers. When the Hungarians first occupied their present country (A. D. 896) they found no music whatever in their new home. The musical instinct born in them, however, was very strong, for they sang when praying, when preparing for war, at burials and festivals, and their first Christian king, Stephan I (997-1038), founded a school where singing was taught. In fact, the power of music was respected so much that early musicians were called hegedös, a word not derived from the Hungarian hegedü (violin), but from heged—'having healed the wounds.' In the fourteenth century, when the first gypsies migrated to Hungary, they found there a people whose music was already so highly developed that the newcomers themselves learned their melodies from them. It was through the songs of the Hungarians that the gypsies became famous, and we have to bear in mind that the great merit of the gypsies was not in creating melodies, but in making them popularly known from generation to generation.
Under the reign of the great national king, Mathias I (1458-1490), music flourished and was even highly cherished. The king, who made Hungary one of the greatest powers of Europe in that period, possessed an organ with silver pipes, and an orchestra. He also had in his service numerous court singers, who sang of the heroic deeds of national heroes. That musicians were highly esteemed there we infer from the fact that such musicians as Adrian Willaert and Thomas Stolzer were in the service of King Louis II (1516-1526). After the battle of Mohács (1526) the whole country was brought under the yoke of the Turks, and almost every trace of the high culture of the Hungarians was destroyed, so that we possess nothing of the musical treasures of this period. Collections of religious chants (from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) show that sacred music exerted a notable influence upon Hungarian folk-music. The folk element, however, was already very strong at the time of Sebastian Tinody (1510-1554), whose historical songs displayed genuine and pure Hungarian qualities. Not before the middle of the sixteenth century was the character of Hungarian music reflected outside of Hungary—at first in pieces called Passamezzo and Ongaro, published in various German and Italian collections.
In tracing the further development of Hungarian music we find that in the latter part of the seventeenth century some stage productions included songs. At about the same time the Rákóczyan era of national struggles brought forth many beautiful and impressive melodies. These treasures were of no small influence upon the evolution of national music, brought into still greater prominence by musicians whom we may call the real originators of the Hungarian idiom. They were Lavotta (1764-1820), Csermák (1771-1822), and Bihari (1769-1827). Lavotta's compositions were genuinely characteristic Hungarian products, showing mastery of invention and skill in handling the national rhythms. He possessed a vivid fancy and a wealth of ideas, but no technique. While his most important work had the promising title of 'The Siege of Szigetvár,'[25] it was composed for a solo violin without accompaniment and its musical ideas were not over eight to sixteen measures in length. Lavotta's other compositions, such as his 'Serenade,'[26] in modern arrangements are extremely effective. Some of his 'folk-songs' will live forever.
Lavotta's pupil, the Bohemian Csermák, produced some characteristic dances. He, too, lacked solidity of structure. The compositions of the brilliant gypsy violinist, Bihari (some of which are preserved in various transcriptions), are the most valuable examples of old national Hungarian music. The famous Rákoczy march, as we know it through the transcriptions of Liszt and Berlioz, is his work, being a remodelled version of the original, plaintive Rákoczy song composed about 1675 by M. Barna.
Summing up, we may distinguish the following six periods in the history of Hungarian music from its beginning: the age of the Pagan Hungarians, those whose songs were so persistent that three centuries after the introduction of Christianity the Councils found it necessary to suppress them; the period from the rise of Christianity to the fifteenth century, when as elsewhere music was wholly in the service of the church, while secular music was cultivated only by wandering minstrels; the three centuries following, when the growing influence of the gypsies is most powerfully felt, when Lutheran and Calvinistic churches spread among the people, and when the folk-songs alive in the mouths of the people to-day were born; the eighteenth century, when Hungarian national music became more independent and individual, Hungarian rhythms especially became strongly pronounced, and the fundamental principles of absolute music were laid down; and the first half of the nineteenth century, which produced the first masters. The last of the six periods is that of the contemporary composers and of 'young Hungary.'
In a few words we have endeavored to give a sketch of the first four divisions. The transition to the next—the period of the first masters—may be marked by the first opera with a Hungarian libretto. This was 'Duke Pikko and Tuttka Perzsi,' performed in 1793 under Lavotta. The work was without any significance whatsoever. The first noteworthy attempt in the direction of national grand opera was 'Béla's Flight' by Ruzicska (1833). That composer preferred the forms of the light and popular Hungarian folk-songs to a more serious vein. He should be given credit for his ambitious attempt to create a truly national historical opera, Hungarian both in music and in text. He was followed by Franz Erkel (1810-1893), whose operas, with subjects taken from Hungarian history, are still played to-day. His music was genuinely Hungarian in character and had absolute value. The overture to his Hunyady László, with its classical form and poetic content, was made popular in Europe through the efforts of Liszt. Erkel was careful in selecting his dramatic subjects, drawing freely upon Hungarian history. The subject of his most successful work, Bánk-Bán, has also inspired the mediæval German poet Hans Sachs, the eminent Austrian dramatist Grillparzer, and the Hungarian Josef Katona, whose tragedy of the same title represents the best in Hungarian dramatic literature. Contemporary with Erkel but of much less significance was M. Mosonyi (1814-1870), who preserved the Hungarian character in his operas and orchestral compositions as well as in his piano pieces. His 'Studies' were highly esteemed by Wagner.
The further development of Hungarian culture and music in the nineteenth century closely reflects the influence of the French, Germans, and Italians, although the national ambition of the Hungarians to remodel the foreign examples according to their own genius is evident. It is upon this principle that Hungary to-day produces musical works of absolute merit.