VILLAGE TUNES IN BUDAPEST STYLE

Fifty Years Of Muzsik S

Last year marked half a century of the táncház (dance house) method, the one-time movement among Budapest intellectual circles that grew into a practice attracting hundreds of thousands worldwide, listed on the unesco list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2023, the Muzsikás ensemble, one of the key pillars of the new wave of folk music in Hungary, likewise celebrates its 50th anniversary at Bartók Spring. The group takes its name from the original practitioners of peasant music (muzsikás), from whom its members endeavoured to learn the authentic playing styles previously thought impossible to master. It is thanks to Muzsikás that Hungarian folk music – in all its beauty, repute and power – has found its way into the world’s most renowned concert halls over recent decades.

By Béla Szilárd Jávorszky

There are numerous reasons why Muzsikás stands out from the crowd of folk music groups over the past fifty years. It had much to draw on, given the extraordinarily strong intellectual family background of its founding members; we need only to mention that one member was raised by an internationally renowned dance researcher, another as the son of a two-time Kossuth Prize–winning poet. The band’s name is associated with epochal hit folk songs such as Start Out on a Road, Falling Leaves, Cold Winds Are Blowing and I Thought It Was Raining. Besides its members’ talents, the fact that all speak several languages was another factor contributing to the band’s success, and together they proved an unstoppable force. But for Muzsikás to able to reach the heights it has over such a long period is due to the irreplaceable individual roles of each of its members. Although the musicians of Muzsikás have devoted their lives to passing on folk traditions, they first encountered Hungarian folk music in an urban setting. Growing into society in the 1960s, as teenagers they were as much excited about the new sound of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the catchy beat and rhythm and blues tunes, as about archaic Hungarian folk music from Transylvania. But what captivated them from both these seemingly different worlds was the same: the energy and enormous freedom of the music.

Borders Within And Beyond

Over the past half century it has often been the task of Muzsikás to break the ice: the dance house they launched at the Municipal Cultural Centre of Budapest in autumn 1973, with dance instruction, would set the benchmark. Muzsikás was the first in the revival movement to record an album purely of folk music. They were also largely responsible for working out how to present folk music effectively on stage, bringing it closer to the audience with introductions and short explanations. They were the first to reverse the role of musicians; rather than merely accompanying the dancers (as they did initially), entire evenings of folk dance choreography were put together from their tunes.

As the folk music revival spread, Muzsikás emerged as the movement’s most popular ensemble. From 1979, viola player Péter Éri officially joined the group, as did singer Márta Sebestyén from 1980. Adding to regular appearances in clubs and dance houses at home, they began travelling abroad more often to Western Europe and even Australia. But increasingly they also crossed or broke down boundaries in another sense. Bringing traditional folk music to the stage required not only a degree of adaptation and rearrangement, but also the matching of technically incongruous lyrics and melodies in a bold and free fashion. But, although they upended traditional instrumentation, unlike their contemporaries they never wrote music or came up with new tunes.

As the driver of these ‘adventures’, the band’s founding violinist Sándor Csoóri Jr, recalled, ‘For me the bluesy experiments absolutely fit into the spirit of Muzsikás. These two feelings for life entirely cohabit within me. I wanted us to be more, to be more special; as Ferenc Bodor [one-time documentarian of the dance house movement – Ed.] put it, to be The Rolling Stones of folk music.’

Enter The Legendary Producer

The varied and unusual soundscape developed by Muzsikás in the 1980s would eventually catch the attention of noted American producer Joe Boyd, head of Hannibal Records, which would play a defining role in the evolution of world music as a genre. The manager who had helped launch the careers of numerous world-famous musicians and groups, among them Pink Floyd, flew in person to Budapest to acquire foreign publishing rights for the 1986 Muzsikás album later issued by Hannibal under the title Prisoner’s Song, for Márta Sebestyén’s collaboration with the band originally released in 1987 (and for the second lp by the Vujicsics Ensemble). The British and American issues of both Muzsikás albums were physically released on the same day in 1987 as the group played to resounding success at the Cropredy Festival marking the 20th anniversary of the foundation of English folk-rock legends Fairport Convention. With this, the British market opened up for Muzsikás, with Joe Boyd going on to play a key role in the group’s international launch.

The Conquest Of Great Britain

Muzsikás played the Electric Cinema and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and in May 1995 conquered Queen Elizabeth Hall, followed two years later by the 2,000-seat Barbican Hall, and the 2,500-seat Royal Festival Hall in November 1998. ‘Qualitatively, everything took place on a different level’, says Dániel Hamar, the group’s double bassist and spokesman, recalling their reception in England. ‘Instead of crawling around in our beat-up minibus, we travelled like lords by plane. For a single concert. We were taken from the airport straight to a fancy hotel, and the next day we had twenty people working just for us at rehearsal.’

It was Joe Boyd who wrote the sleeve notes appearing on the back of the Blues for Transylvania album Muzsikás released in March 1990 (issued in Hungary a year earlier under the title Ősz az idő ). As an illustration, he published a rough map of Transylvania, while asking the question of how Americans would feel if their country was truncated for the benefit of Mexico to an extent similar to that set down in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. With his strongly subjective words, Boyd aimed to bring home to record-buyers across the Atlantic the emotional charge behind an album recorded in the year of the Romanian Revolution.

‘In 1988–1989, the “rural systematization program” took place in Romania, known colloquially simply as the destruction of villages, and launched with the wholly obvious political intention of breaking up blocks of the Hungarian population’, recalls Hamar. ‘I know from Boyd that the Romanian foreign mission immediately protested against the record label over the cover, but of course to no avail.’

Hommage Bart K

At the time of their concert at the Barbican Centre in April 1997, László Porteleki was already playing for Muzsikás, having joined after the departure of one its founders, Sándor Csoóri Jr. The new violinist proved a fortunate choice for several reasons: in contrast to urban intellectuals, he had village roots, with fourteen years spent leading the Téka ensemble as his calling card, while he was also one of the few accepted as one of their own by the Palatka Gypsy Band, a leading ensemble from Transylvania.

Simultaneously with the addition of Porteleki, the tastes of classically trained first violinist Mihály Sipos also gained greater ground, as the emphasis on Bartók’s ‘pure source’ increased, culminating in the release of the Bartók Album in 1998 to particularly wild success abroad. With this, the group introduced the world’s leading concert halls to their folk music, the inspirational influence of which is clearly discernible in the Hungarian composed music of the first half of the 20th century – if we think only of Bartók, Kodály and Lajtha. Another breakthrough came in 2008 when Muzsikás was invited to play Hungarian folk music at the BBC Proms, Europe’s most important classical music festival, which was including folk music for the first time in its programme. Muzsikás was the only ensemble to play Hungarian folk music alongside the British folk acts at the 5,000-seat Royal Albert Hall in London.

BACK TOGETHER ON STAGE: THE ORIGINAL LINE-UP OF MUZSIKÁS

Muzsikás was among the first to introduce and popularise Hungarian folk music abroad, and also the first to perform it in many of the world’s classical music venues. It is therefore no accident that in Hungary the group is the first from the folk music revival to have its work recognised with both the Franz Liszt Prize in 1995 and the Kossuth Prize in 1999. In 2008, it was the first European group to receive the WOMEX Award, the top international accolade in world music.

This jubilee concert serves as a kind of retrospective look at how ancient traditions have been employed over the last fifty years, and how the urban form of entertainment we now know as dance house was created together with other pioneers of the movement. The evening will feature two folk singers who regularly collaborate with Muzsikás: Hanga Kacsó, representing the younger generation (winner of the televised folk song competition Fölszállott a páva), and Prima Primissima Award–winning Mária Petrás, a Western Moldavian–born representative of the original style. They will be joined by Kálmán Balogh, a cimbalom player equally at home in folk and world music, by classical pianist Balázs Fülei, and by the Pro Musica Girls’ Choir from Nyíregyháza. In addition, the folk dance pairing of Zoltán ‘Batyu’ Farkas and Ildikó ‘Fecske’ Tóth, an indispensable part of Muzsikás productions for decades, will convey to the audience the important role dance played in relationships between men and women in traditional village communities. Finally, the appearance of Sándor Csoóri Jr, the key figure in the first twenty-three years of Muzsikás, for the extent of a few tunes, for the first time since he left the group in 1996, promises to be no ordinary event.

The author is a music writer; his book on the history of Muzsikás was issued by Kossuth Publishing House on the 40th anniversary of the group’s founding in 2013.

The Largest Terrace In Budapest

10 April | 11am

Müpa Budapest – Atrium

Muzsik S Day

Featuring among others: Julcsi Paár, Dresch String Quartet, Ferenc Zimber, Dániel Szabó, Berka Band

Host: István Berecz

Editor: László Porteleki

10 April | 8pm

Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

Muzsik S 50

The members of the band: Mihály Sipos – violin, zither, voice, László Porteleki – koboz, tambura, voice, Péter Éri – viola, kontra, mandolin, recorders, voice, Dániel Hamar – double bass, gardon, drum, voice

Featuring: Hanga Kacsó, Mária Petrás –voice, Sándor Csoóri Jr – violin, viola, Balázs

Fülei – piano, Kálmán Balogh – cimbalom, István Berecz, Zoltán ‘Batyu’ Farkas, Ildikó

‘Fecske’ Tóth – dance, Pro Musica Girls’ Choir (choirmaster: Dénes Szabó), Corvinus Közgáz

Folk Dance Ensemble (artistic director: Irén Deffend)

3 Dancefloors

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