I said that the musician-world is also Hungarian-music-hating. Untig I repeat that by musician I mean German and Czech foreign musicians and students and students of the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music and all kinds of official conservatories. Because most of them also become Hungarian music-hate under the system, due to the direction of music institutes, no matter how good Hungarian-born they were originally.
However, I have to explain what this word means to them: Hungarian music hatred.
Good music is not hated by any kind of musician. Hungarian music is good music. Its melody is wonderful. He drives every soul under his lord. Its structure is new and original along with the music of the western peoples and the great music. But Hungarian music is also high. Although in the form of symphonies, chamber music, sonatas, serious and vig songs -292-they are practiced and hardly practiced, but it does not depend on the honor, greatness, and sophistication of the material of the music, but on its performers.
No one doubts, even the most delicate ears and souls, even the most confident Western music composer, admits that the Hungarian music of Bánk bán, for example, is one of the best music of the highest degree and could have been performed with complete success in any song theater in the world. For example, I heard from Mascagni myself in Káldy’s lodge during a performance of Bánk bán that Bánk bán could be a great success in all directions in Italy. Wagner himself expressed great admiration for the richness of this music. Chopin heard details of Hungarian music from Liszt and marveled at their beauty and richness. One hundred such examples could be given to externally justify our music.
However, the musician’s mind stops before Bánk bán.
He says: this is what Hungarian music is all about. Had he not been exhausted: Erkel and others could have composed more similar or better and larger Hungarian pieces of music. That he did not create proves that nothing else can be created, nothing more, better and bigger.
I do not argue with such duplicity. That Erkel didn’t create more: it’s a coincidence. Soldier also created only one Bánk grief, and according to the musician’s mind, no more Hungarian poets should have been born after Katona.
But it is true that since the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music has been bothering us: since then the Hungarian -293-racial music is increasingly excluded from the company of music-enjoying audiences and from music institutes and higher music performances. Since then, our racial music has begun to shrink into the lute music of simple love and ribs, and once again it only begins to fall into the hands of the blessed good gypsy.
Once upon a time, two hundred years ago, we had heroic, church and higher performing music. Not even the numbing and Germanizing era of Maria Theresa was able to kill it. After all, Czinka Panna was quite, Lavotta and Bihari still partly musicians of this era. After them, a dense haze descended on our national music.
As a child, I often thought about our folk songs.
At that time it was only the collection of János Erdélyi. Since then, many collections have attacked and the number of our folk songs is in the thousands.
But these folk songs deal only with love and its joys and sorrows. And besides, only bordal and devaj songs make up the collections. Even Kriza’s collection of Szekler folk poetry lacks the national heroic element, and many of the pieces in this collection are the ballad part, the narrative direction.
So where are the songs and melodies of the nation’s heroic life? Where are the song memories of the battles won and lost? Where are the glorious memories of the Hunyadians? Where is the soaring of the Hungarian soul over the sublime memory of the great historical figures of the Losonczys, Szondyak, Dobók, Zrinyiek, Gyulaffyak, Thury Györgyök, Bocskayak, Bethlen, Rákócziak and their heroic life and death?-294-
Didn’t the nation’s grateful soul and self-esteem become richer in their name?
He took off.
The Hungarian soul was never poorer than the soul of any nation in the world.
The songs of the Kuruczkor, collected by Thaly, and the songs of the Kuruczkor, collected by Káldy: these prove that the creative power of the national soul has never died out. He was awake and working uninterrupted.
It was only during the mourning rule of Maria Theresa, even more so after the Congress of Vienna, that the higher national and heroic element was left out of our songs and music life. But no era has destroyed our national music as much as the age of today’s generation, since our helpless governments have entrusted the Royal Academy of Music with the management of our entire musical life.
These unhappy academic teachers, artists and students are unfamiliar with the great works of Hungarian music. They don’t even know Káldy’s collectible pieces. The names of Hungarian composers of the last centuries are unknown to them. If you hear the names of Lavotta and Bihari: they think they are some American names from the ancient state of Mexico, a genus of long-extinct Aztecs.
And what a man knows not, let him not love.
That is why I strived for myself and that is why we, together with Káldy, strived for all the materials of Hungarian music. -295-to even collect its kinship from the mult and the present and from home and far away Asia.
If they get to know each other: they love it. And if they love it: they cultivate it.
A terrible obstacle stood and stands in our way. I have to point this out too, that we know the conditions perfectly.
The obstacle is a matter of bread and Germanization.
Let’s take a look at our musicians. On the so-called musicians. Most of it is foreign. German and Czech. Or he grew up in a foreign music school in Vienna, Prague and the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music. So even if he was born Hungarian: his musical soul only deteriorated thoroughly.
And there are a lot of these musicians.
Teachers of institutes. Musicians of theaters and song theaters. Choir Germans of large cathedrals. Those many countless pianists everywhere. Here in the capital, almost every high-ranking and wealthy Jewish family has some kind of musician who lives or travels there if they have children at the house. And most of it, but most of it is foreign, German and Czech. S foreign music since and teaches all. He speaks German and Germanizes the family.
We have a hell of a system working on Germanization. Such a system has never worked with such power in Hungary. The executioner Leopold I exterminated the Hungarians with fire and iron, but its effect did not come close to today’s system. Even Maria Theresa -296-her feminine charm, intrigue, and Germanizing zeal did not follow what was happening to us during the last thirty years of constitutional rule.
It was as if every minister and every head of the family and every teacher had gone crazy. The password is: everyone must learn German. The end result is that everyone will be German. If only the heaven of world history would not fall to its present state at some unexpected moment. Knock down for sure. Just don’t be late. Just don’t be late.
Németes are officers of the crown, the royal court, the common government, the army and its hundreds of institutes and thirty thousand officers. In fact, all his officers. The high priesthood, many episcopal courts, most of the church, all nunneries, all Jesuits and Carmelites and all vagrant missionaries are Germanized. Germanization is the majority of the main orders, financial institutions, pubs, cafes, waiters, treasurers, travelers, commercial agents. Every color band, every ledger theater and Orpheus attraction, every aristocratic amusement, hunting, horse riding are all German. Germanists are governors and large cultural institutions. The Academy of Music has long been German, and everything in the National Gallery and Museum of Applied Arts goes German. They just deceive and deceive the world with the Hungarians. The Schikkedans lead everywhere. Large industrial and factory companies also Germanize. Hungarians do not get a job with them and if they do: they have to hear the word »dog Hungarian« every day. How many architects, pallets and labor inspectors are there in Budapest:-297-much of it is all Germanic. The poor highland lake and the Russians, when he comes home from America: he speaks English, when he goes home from Budapest: he speaks German. There is no question of national education in our mainstream and more upscale and wealthier families. It is completely excluded. English Mass, German Nordic Dancer, French Governor, Czech Jager, Italian and German Confessor, German and Czech butler crowds in every house, the children of many lords in the western counties do not speak or even understand the Hungarian language.
This is a system! Big, huge, deep and general system.
And the most dangerous in this system is the army of musicians and musicians.
This army wants to eat, clothe, hang out and make money.
He knows foreign music, he doesn’t know Hungarian music. So you can’t make money with Hungarian music, therefore your instinct drives you to suppress Hungarian music everywhere, to oust it everywhere.
And he puts millions of Hungarians’ money in his pocket.
Not only the majestic soaring of the national soul, not only the purity and nobility of racial self-esteem demands Hungarian music, but also the maintenance of our material well-being. The Hungarian life force is leaking abroad through a hundred channels, one of the big channels is music life. Shut up forever.
And our language!
The capital, if it is not Hungarian, will be a curse of our nation. Our fate, our murderous destiny.-298-
Our capital is a cosmopolitan city. They weigh heavier on our nation than the crown and the army combined. Our motto, custom, fashion, bad morals, folly, virtue and sin, betrayal and patriotism are established here: it spreads throughout the homeland.
This also spreads Germanization. In a hundred ways and with irresistible force and by all means. One of the great tools is music. And the companies that make music with slippery lyrics.
And these are both foreigners and Germans.
Without its language, there is no nation-individual. And without his music he is not healthy and his soul is not pure. Language and music are also related. With foreign music, a foreign feeling takes root in the heart and slowly a foreign language gets used to the lips.
Our music still has its ancient purity today. Hundreds of great foreign composers have already drawn from it, but so far none of them have possessed it. Good luck. This is why our music, our last and perhaps only world-conquering force, has not yet been mastered. Our independent state life has ended since Mohács. Our economic life depends on others. Our army, this is the only institution of national self-esteem, is missing. He can no longer be a hero or a warlord for the Hungarians – for himself. He can only be an Austrian hero, only an Austrian warlord. Our science is frivolous, false, and without independence.
We still have only our language, poetry and music.
But they can steal our music.
If a stranger with a great flame strikes, he shall be found -299-elaborates: we also lose its glory, merit, and utility. Our self-esteem falls into a big chunk, even though it’s not all.
That was my thought and that was Káldy’s thought.
Will we achieve our great goal?
Chaldean had all hope when he got into his mourning. I wasn’t even in doubt.
I’m looking for the man who could replace Chaldean. I am looking for a governor who has both the power and the heart to the great ideal. And I am looking for the party that will support me.