2013. november 18., hétfő

Gipsies music and dancing in Hungary

Gott wie gross ist deine zoo...

This articles contains stories of good  and bad, which are illustrative of their titles: “The Preference of Goodness to Riches,” “The Contrast between Inhumanity and  Compassion,” “The Exaltation of Humility, and the Abasement of Pride,” “The Necessity of Correction for Idleness and Perverseness,” “The good and naughty ,” and “The fatal Effects of Mistaken Fondness.” In these article, the well-behaved are universally  admired and loved, and those who are ill-behaved are shunned. I am thoroughly aware that the point which is likely to excite the attention of my readers to a greater degree than any other in the previous chapter, is the reference contained therein to the secret things write. My orations are a tropical forest, full of strength and majesty, tangled in luxuriance, a wilderness of  self-repetition. Utterly unsuited to form a book without immense abridgment, they contain materials adapted equally for immediate political service and for permanence as a work of wisdom and of genius. To prepare them for the press is an arduous and responsible duty: the best excuse which I can give for having assumed it, is, that it has been to me a labour of love. My task I have felt to be that of a judicious reporter, who cuts short what is of temporary interest, condenses what is too amplified for his limits and for written style, severely prunes down the repetitions which are inevitable where numerous[*] audiences are addressed by the same man on the same subject, yet amid all these necessary liberties retains not only the true sentiments and arguments of the speaker, but his forms of thought and all that is characteristic of his genius. Such an operation, rightly performed, may, like a diminishing mirror, concentrate the brilliancy of diffuse orations, and assist their efficacy on minds which would faint under the effort of grasping the original. These are words of magic to the rich and poor, noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian. Nevertheless I have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself; which his great occupations have made impossible. The mistakes in the reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not roused my suspicion. There are two kinds of gipsies. The wandering thief, who can not be made to take up any occupation. These are a terribly lawless and immoral people, and there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho much has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the Government has shown itself to be helpless as yet. These people live here and there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts, and camp wherever night overtakes them. After some special evil-doing they will wander into Rumania or Russia and come back after some years when the deed of crime has been forgotten. Their movements are so quick and silent that they outwit the best detectives of the police force. They speak the gipsy language, but often a half-dozen other languages besides, in their peculiar chanting voice. Their only occupation is stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a nuisance to the country in every way.  The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in the villages some hundreds of years ago. They live in a separate part of the village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation. They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages are mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest kind of work too. Besides these, however, there are the talented ones. The musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle. The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia. Old parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and war-chants at the time of the "home-making," and church and folk-songs from their earliest Christian period. Peasant and nobleman are musical alike—it runs in the race. The gipsies that have settled among them caught up the love of music and are now the best interpreters of the Hungarian songs. The people have got so used to their "blackies," as they call them, that no lesser or greater fête day can pass without the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola, clarinet, tárogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal. The tárogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the player performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends with cotton-wool. The sound is wild and weird, but if well played very beautiful indeed. The gipsies seldom compose music. The songs come into life mostly on the spur of the moment. In the olden days war-songs and long ballads were the most usual form of music. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were specially rich in the production of songs that live even now. At that time the greatest gipsy musician was a woman: her name was "Czinka Panna," and she was called the Gipsy Queen. With the change of times the songs are altered too, and now they are mostly lyric. Csárdás is the quick form of music, and tho' of different melodies it must always be kept to the same rhythm. This is not much sung to, but is the music for the national dance. The peasants play on a little wooden flute which is called the "Tilinko," or "Furulya," and they know hundreds of sad folk-songs and lively Csárdás. While living their isolated lives in the great plains they compose many a beautiful song. It is generally from the peasants and the musical country gentry that the gipsy gets his music. He learns the songs after a single hearing, and plays them exactly according to the singer's wish. The Hungarian noble when singing with the gipsies is capable of giving the dark-faced boys every penny he has. In this manner many a young nobleman has been ruined, and the gipsies make nothing of it, because they are just like their masters and "spend easily earned money easily," as the saying goes. Where there is much music there is much dancing. Every Sunday afternoon after church the villages are lively with the sound of the gipsy band, and the young peasant boys and girls dance. Meanwhile my readers may be curious to think how I am related to this worthy  who writes; but this indeed I cannot tell..

Beware when the great got lets loose a thinker on this  library ...

Nincsenek megjegyzések:

Megjegyzés küldése