Oh, scientists, ministers, councilors, musicians, scholarly societies, you have made this beautiful beginning zeal!
I was distracted elsewhere by the country’s worries. I couldn’t pay enough attention to the issue of our national music.
The Szapáry government had to be overthrown. It kidnapped me for a few weeks. My old friend Dániel Irányi died and I had to take over the presidency and leadership of the Independence Party. The new government has flagged radical church policy improvements, and my party and I have taken a stand for them. Gradually, all the dissatisfaction and even personal hatred of the ecclesiastical opposition gathered against me. Newspapers and legislators, priests and chiefs scolded me as if I had been the chief minister.-248- I had to go to Turin to the holy old man, Kossuth, and his things also distracted me a lot of time and a lot.
However, in March of 1893, I spoke once during the budget debate in the House of Representatives. My speech was an acute outburst. But my explanations and ideas have had a huge impact in the legislature as well as in the press. On closer inspection, they barely listened to my speech ever. Even the hostile press received my words with great warmth.
But it was in vain. His only success was that Count Albin Csáky entrusted Káldy with a lecture on the history of Hungarian music at the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music. All the attention of the nation was swallowed up by the ecclesiastical policy and the alliance secretly but powerfully organized against it. I couldn’t care enough about the great cause of our music.
But Káldy cared.
I was staring at this great soul at this time, when I really loved and respected it. Everyone left him alone, but he worked tirelessly with his sacred zeal for the confessor.
He collected more historical music. The XVIII. from the end of the 19th century, from the Bihari era, from the time of the national resurrection, from the period of the independence struggles of 1848-49. And he researched not only our songs but also our dances. His investigations led to exorbitant results.
Count Albin Csáky resigned in the month of June 1894. Baron Eötvös was replaced by Baron. During his brief ministry, nothing happened in the case.-249-This was followed by Wlassics in the bosom of the Bánffy government. Finger and zealous young man. It was like going to Vác and arriving in Kecskemét. He became a law teacher and became a minister of religion. Pauler used to do the same. Sad state. But this is often a common case with us, let’s not even bother about it.
Naturally, in the first days of his ministry, all the instincts of the initiative were missing from his spirit. He had to trust his advisers. And counselors are eternal, like a fairytale knife. Where the handle changes, where the blade, but the knife remains the same. You can’t change, you can’t be different.
One can therefore imagine what fate awaited Káldy, what rewards and recognition for his great efforts.
In the snow of February 1895, he presented a short memoir to Wlassics. He informs the Minister that he has already given us all the memories at his own expense. It’s four great works, with over a hundred great pieces of music.
All hitherto unknown or little-known works of the period from 1825 to 1860 have been collected and are awaiting publication. This is the era of the rebirth of the nation, then the great war of independence, and then the dark delusion. The glorious age of Széchenyi, Károly Kisfaludy, Vörösmarty, Deák, Petőfi, Kossuth, Arany. This age is filled with the great Hungarian works of Boka, Csermák, Ruzsicska, Egressy and many others, and later with the flame spirit of Erkel Ferencz.
Many musical compositions of this age were unknown to the great -250-in front of an audience. Our fathers knew a lot, but the generation after 1849 forgot a lot. Dark delusion strictly forbade the public performance of Hungarian heroic music. He went to prison, who dared to sing the Rákóczi starter, Lajos Kossuth’s message or just the Word. Only the lute music of love songs was free. These songs multiplied in thousands. Hungarian national music began to descend into the rón region of simple folk songs in public life. The high-rise cliffs of kurucz music and recruiters were slowly obscured by the fog of oblivion. Káldy collected and saved everything that had been created since 1825, what had been forgotten and what was worth saving.
Others would have undertaken this. Yet this age was only close to us and there were many more who remembered and could follow.
Káldy also went back to the age of the old Hungarian lutes. In the age that began after Mohács and was replaced by the Kurucian age of Thököly, Káldy called this age the era of Tinódy and Balassa in the history of Hungarian music. There was no one among our historical researchers who would have dug the musical works of this era, the sad epic music, the happier flower songs from the vast layer of mining. No one among our scientists has a musical knowledge similar to Káldy’s.
Káldy didn’t stop here either.
He noticed that from 1780 to 1820, from the German dictatorship of Emperor Joseph to the time after the Congress of Vienna, in addition to the surviving and well-known musical works -251-Hungarian folk music grew in a wonderful way. I would have called this era the era of Lavotta and Bihari. Káldy proved to me that these are two eras. One is Lavotta and Bihari and we know this about well. At the same time and behind this, another era of music lived and flourished, and he called it the era of Verseghy and Csokonay. We know little about this. From this era comes the famous Klopiczky song, the lyrics of which are: “Still mischievous in German”. This is the origin of the song »Csikóbőrös water bottle«. The melody of the song »Lajos Kossuth said it« is also from this. And a hundred and a hundred other excellent pieces of music.
All this was offered by Káldy to Minister Wlassics in February 1895.
And if only he had offered it!
This wonderful humble and great soul has long guessed, as I have always claimed, that there is an inseparable connection between the racial music and the dance of the nation and that the same soul lives and works and works with the same wings. Slope in the text, soaring in the melody, movement in the body: according to the same time and arithmetic laws. This is how true national music can be confused with nothing.
As a good mother, she lost her child: Káldy was looking for Hungarian dancers in the dense and obscure groves of the last centuries. And he found a lot. He found majestic dances. Some of them still live either under their old name or under their new name. We forgot some of them. The West pushed out a lot-252-intrusion of fashion. Some, in my opinion, were not pure Hungarian dancers at the time.
We exchanged many ideas on this issue, and we often argued with Káldy. But now I want to share his view.
He had already found the Invader in the last centuries. They still walk especially in their villages. But not with that slower size, southbound movement and regular ankle than before. Today’s youth is barely walking. Now the girl and the lad are running, giggling and bouncing.
Káldy thought what I call Knocker today, because I heard it from my old men, his name was once Dobogó. This is the origin of today’s fast inn. He does not know what old sources he found the name Podium. I warned that our people call the wooden bridge and the hollow rock benches underneath Dobogó. And the old Uuri palaces were not planked with planks, but paved with stone, and even made of stuffed, crumpled clay by even more modest commoners. Then only the word knocking meant clearly the sound produced by the fast-paced dance. Káldy left the Podium.
A XVI. century Garland Dance, Hedgehog Dance, Wedding Dance, although not quite or at least not everywhere with these names, it still exists today. There is also some poetry associated with the Wedding Dance. Today, the Dance of the Garland and Hedgehog is a game for children to work together and hide in the hedge.
Candlelight is no longer used today. Our ancestors-253-they went. No candles today. Stearin, Apollo, Milly, etc. it would not be advisable to have a candle, one would tie all the clothes with it. It used to be a wax candle, not a tallow. Even with great fondness, the living beings. It is true that he is not dizzy and not bubbly.
There was a dance in the XVI. century, which was called the Friendship Dance. It was a shuffling dance to promote or enhance the fun. The friends used to walk barefoot, tying up at most a sheet of oxen clipped to short hair under their feet. Shoes and boots later became fashionable with them, as well as wooden slippers. Otherwise, the Hungarian race never wore wooden slippers. I can sacredly believe that our ancestors learned the Dance of Friends either from the Germans or went to make fun of them.
The Pillow Dance has already been described by several other writers.
The Cziczkatáncz, as far as I know, resembled the Invader. But he walked faster than that.
Beyond the Boriczatáncz, I have never heard of the Danube in the Hungarian countryside. The name is of Slavic origin. Káldy claimed that this was also fashionable at our place.
I have already said my opinion about the Csürdöngölő dance. We didn’t agree with Káldy on this. It’s a beautiful dance, but it’s more of a stage. It’s a real acrobatic work if one walks fast. He has many movements in the lake and in the Oláh dance as well.
Everyone knows the Recruiter. Káldy consistently calls this Verbungos. It is true that our ancestors mostly called it that. It also existed as early as the 16th century.-254-
Tent Dance was a very nice board game. One of the details consisted of girls forming a circle, it was the tent, this was what the lad had to get into.
Our ancestors also attended the Arms Dance. One of its sexes was also called Hajdútáncz. I don’t consider this to be original Hungarian either. Trendy for South Slavs. Wild people also travel to Africa, America. Dance is nothing but the ideal of moving painting and sculpture. A testimony of strength and majesty from the man, a testimony of charm and kindness from the woman. No weapon is required for this. Flashing an ax, a degree, a spear, and a mace is incompatible with the healthy idea of dancing. Conquering a woman with a gun is not a virtue of a real man. So the weapon is not a sign here. But you can only dance with a cheerful soul and a lofty temper. In such a state of mind, one reaches for a flower, not a weapon.
Káldy was looking for the dance of the Three Hundred Widows. Jókai also described this in one of his works. But he can’t really give his master either. Czinka Panna had a famous piece of music with the title The Song of the Three Hundred Widows. However, this work is lost. So far, at least no one could invent it. It is probable that only his name was lost and another melody still lives on in another song.
There was also a dance called the Dead Dance. Tangled thought. Czinka Panna also had a song about this. This is also lost.
Káldy didn’t even find Kinizsi’s dance. Beyond us on the Danube, this is only used by the very first in the highest mood-255-dancer act. And this could only be walked on top of the table among the dead pigs, kappans and ducks, as Kinizsi once did among the dead Turks. The last time I saw him was one of my old board judge friends, Miklós Pápay, when he was almost seventy years old.
Behold, the description and music of these dances were offered to our Minister Káldy Wlassics when his ministry was only six weeks old. Yet the science of the history of Hungarian dances goes even further. There are many more dances in our contemporary historical documents, traditions, proverbs and folk customs.
There are the deva dances marked with a buzzing word: the boyny dance, the thief dance, the barber dance, the monkey dance, the magpie dance, the applause dance, the Jewish dance, the gypsy dance, the dog dance, the booming dance.
There is the fur dance and mowing dance and the woodpecker or lap dance. But even that is much fairer than any version of alien primrose dance.
We also have some very nice social dances there, known as hat dances, mouse dances, round or round dances, pair dances, walking dances, pumpkin dances by our ancestors and great-grandparents.
And there is the beautiful downhill dance and slow dance, the princely palace dance, and the stormy early dance and peasant dance.
To a large extent, Káldy offered to explore all of these, and Káldy offered to explore their history and shape.
What a national treasure it could have been!
But he offered even more, even more.-256-
The science of musical instruments and tools is now one of the great and difficult chapters of natural science.
It is also peculiar that not all peoples have the same instrument and that the individuality of peoples is manifested even in the selection of instruments. He made himself a horn from the horns of the ancient Jewish ram. I don’t think our ancestors ever accepted this as an instrument. The Czech, for example, loves the trumpet very much, the Hungarian never liked it. I just brought up these two cases, for example. Every people with a strong individuality originally has a separate favorite instrument.
