The calling of musician has often become hereditary in certain families, who thus feel themselves to be interwoven with the fates of the nobility for whom they play; and vice versa, for the youth of both sexes in Hungary the recollection of every pleasure they have enjoyed, the dawn of first love, and every alternation of hope, triumph, jealousy, or despair, is inextricably interwoven with the image of the Tzigane player. As Mr. Patterson says, “The Tzigane is a sort of retainer of the Magyar, who cannot well live without him—the insolent good-nature of the one just fitting in with the simple-hearted servility of the other; hence the Tzigane is most commonly found in those parts of the country where Hungarians and Roumanians are in the majority. He does not find the neighborhood of the hard-working, money-loving Suabians profitable to him.” Those who are successful musicians gain a sort of abnormal social status far above their fellows. The proverb, “No entertainment without the gypsies,” is acted upon by peasant and prince alike. Those nobles who have squandered their fortunes would, if they took the trouble to analyze the causes of their ruin, find the Tzigane player to form one of the heaviest items. As to the peasant there is a popular rhyme which says that if the Tzigane plays badly he gets his head broken with his own fiddle; but should he succeed in touching the feelings of the excitable peasant, the latter will give him the shirt off his own back.
English people are apt to misunderstand the position of these Tzigane musicians, which is in every way a peculiar one—the intimacy with the upper classes thus brought about by their calling implying, however, no sort of equality. The Tzigane remains the gypsy fiddler, while the Magyar never forgets that he is a nobleman; and the barrier between the two classes is as absolute as that between Jew and gentleman in Poland. Although it is no uncommon sight in the streets of any Hungarian town, towards the small hours of the morning, to see distinguished members of the jeunesse dorée (their spirits, no doubt, slightly raised by wine) going home affectionately linked arm-in arm with these brown fiddlers, yet no Hungarian could fall into the amusing mistake of an English nobleman, who, making a point of lionizing all celebrities within reach, invited to dinner the first violin of a gypsy band starring in London some years ago. The flattering invitation occasioned the most intense surprise to the distinguished artist himself, who, though well used to many forms of enthusiasm called forth by his genius, was certainly not accustomed to be seriously taken in the sense of a civilized human being. It is said, however, that the gypsy’s quickness of perception, doing duty for education on this occasion, enabled him to pass through the formidable ordeal of a London dinner-party without further breaches of our rigid etiquette than are quite permissible on the part of a barbarous grandee.
It is said that the Tziganes often perform the office of postillon d’amour in taking letters backward and forward between young people who have no other means of communication, their peculiar code of honor forbidding them to take any pecuniary remuneration in return. Thus many of them are able to show dainty pieces of handiwork and presents of valuable jewelled studs or amber mouth-pieces, received from their high-born patrons in token of gratitude for delicate services rendered.
The words “Tzigane” and “musician” have become almost synonymous in Hungary, and to say “I shall call in the Tziganes” is equivalent to saying “I shall send for the musicians.”
When the dancers are limp and indolent the Tzigane musician loses interest as well, and plays carelessly and without spirit; but when he sees dancing con amore, and more especially if his playing be praised, then he knows neither hunger nor fatigue. He executes every sort of dance music with spirit, and his power of identifying himself with the dancers renders the gypsy’s playing far superior to that of other professional musicians; but his real triumph is the csardas.
The band-master is fond of secretly selecting a couple from among the dancers, and at these directing his music—aiming it at them, if one may thus express it—following their every movement, and identifying himself with their every gesture. To watch a pair of lovers dancing is the gypsy player’s greatest delight, and for them he exerts himself to the utmost, throwing his whole soul into the music, breathing the softest sighs and the most passionate rhapsodies of which his instrument is capable.
The Tzigane band-master—or, rather, the first violin, for the gypsies require no one to beat time for them—when playing in the ball-room, is wont to change the melody as fancy prompts, merely giving warning to his colleagues by two sharp raps of the bow that a change is impending. The other musicians do not know beforehand what tune is coming, but a note or two suffices to put them on the scent, and they fall in so smoothly that the transition is scarcely detected.
Almost every one of the dancers has his or her favorite air—their nota, as it is here called—and it is meant as a delicate attention when the Tzigane band-master, smiling or winking at a passing dancer, strikes into his air of predilection. The gypsy’s memory in thus retaining (and never confounding) the favorite airs of each separate person in a large society is marvellous; and not only this, but he will likewise remember to a nicety which air was your favorite one three or four years ago, and all the attendant circumstances to which the former melody played accompaniment.
Thus, whirling past in the mazes of your favorite valse, with the girl you adore on your arm, you may catch the dark eye of the Tzigane player fixed expressively upon you, and in the next moment the music has changed; it is a long-forgotten melody they are playing now—a melody once familiar to your ears at a by-gone time, when you had other thoughts, other hopes, another partner on your arm; when wood-violet, not patchouly, was perchance the scent you loved best, and fair ringlets had more charm than raven tresses.