Szilágynagyfalu (Nusfalău) – Szilágybagos (Boghiş). Original Village music from the Szilágyság (Sălaj)

The Final Hour Program and the “Új Pátria” Series

Since the governmental changes in Romania in 1990, the ease of crossing of the borders, increased possibility of working abroad, influx of consumerism and the cultural and sub-cultural effects caused by new of availability music cassettes have all contributed to more rapid changes in the folk traditions in Transylvania, even in the remotest villages. That is why the Fonó Budai Zeneház set to work to provide the financial background and facilities necessary to do this comprehensive collection of Transylvanian village music.

The Final Hour project is supported by the Institute of Musiscology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Starting in September 1997, there have been regular recording sessions with bands from Transylvanian villages who still play the local traditional music. Each band is at our disposal for five days during which time it is possible to make archival recordings of not only each band’s repertoire of melodies which serves the entertainment needs of more than one ethnic group, but also to document information regarding customs surrounding the traditional music and dance life. Singers and one or two couples of good dancers arrive to Budapest for these recording sessions with each band, helping to maintain the vocal and dance function of the instrumental music. Part of the program is devoted to documentation of the existing Transylvanian traditional flute music.

The CD archive resulting from work of the Final Hour program offers a vast amount of material on the musical traditions of Hungarians, Romanians, Gypsies, Saxons and Jews in Transylvania for research studies as well as a wealth of authentic material and background information for those involved in popular folk music movements. The complete collection will be available for scientific research in the archive of the Institute of Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

The Fonó Records has started this series of CDs under the title “New Pátria,” presenting selections of the most representative material from the collection. This series is the spiritual descendant of the “Pátria” series from the end of the 1930’s by Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and László Lajtha in cooperation with the Hungarian Radio and the Museum of Ethnography.

Szilágynagyfalu (Nusfalău) – Szilágybagos (Boghiş). Original Village music from the Szilágyság (Sălaj):

The Szilágyság is located in the northwestern corner of today’s Transylvania. For us who consider the region primarily from the traditional instrumental folk music standpoint, Szilágyság clearly belongs to the Transylvanian dialect with indications of transitional characteristics from Szatmár, Bihar and the Great Plain areas.



The “traditional band” in this case is not only composed of the usual lead fiddle-viola-double bass. Rather the model here was the more learned sound of the city Gypsy band, the “double” band (meaning 2 fiddles, 2 violas), whose second “first” violin – or second prímás – often plays the third. Amongst the violas, the “prím” is the three stringed viola that plays fast dűvő style bowing (wherein two quarter notes are produced by one stroke of the bow, with a marked stress on each of them) for the fast dance tunes called “ugrálós”, while the other viola is a classically tuned, four stringed viola that plays “esztám” (“off-beat”) accompaniment. On field recordings wherein the band includes an accordion as well, the accordion plays the part of the “prím” viola.



The dance music played here also reflects the transitional condition. At Hungarian events, the musicians play slow, “öreges” csárdás, and without pause, even in the middle of a melody, they change over into csárdás, then they may also include the previous melody in a much faster version in the fast section (which our informants referred to as “ugrálós”). In addition to the couple dances, two variations of men’s dance are found; one known from the Szatmár region and a type of Transylvanian legényes with a fast dűvő bowed accompaniment called verbunk or figurázó; but these have fallen out of the everyday repertoire of dances. For the Romanians, they play the latter under the name of Fecioreşte, or Bărbunc.



Our informants knew the words to an amazing number of csárdás tunes, a mixture of composed and folk songs, evidence of the celebrated appetite for singing of the people of this area. Some of the Hungarian melodies, as a result of centuries of living together, are used without concern for their origin, by Gypsies or Romanians in their own language. It might be a strange feeling for a Hungarian, when a well known Hungarian song is sung and presented as an example of a hundred years old Romanian or Gypsy folk song in the respective language of informants from those ethnic groups. In the course of our field work we have recorded many old Hungarian melodies that were no longer known or used in the Hungarian communities, but have been preserved by other ethnic groups who think of these melodies as their own.



1. Lament, csárdás and fast couple dance
2. If Gábor Dobos goes into the forest…
3. Two Christmas songs (Romanian and Hungarian)
4. Dinanintea raiului…
5. Gypsy laments
6. Couple dances: old slow csárdás’s, csárdás, fast
7. Two men’s dances
8. Shepherd’s tune and couple dance
9. Romanian dance cycle
10. Slovakian wedding march and tune played in front of the church
11. Hungarian wedding march and Rákóczi march
12. There is straw in the shed…
13. Old slow csárdás, csárdás, fast
14. Mother where is the sweet milk…
15. Tune for celebrating the harvest wreath
16. “Belts”
17. The ribbon on my hat…
18. Gypsy dance cycle: old slow csárdás, csárdás, fast Gypsy dance
19. The Gypsies went out to hoe…

Performers:
CSORBA János “Lulu” (1932) violin, voice
CSENGETTYűS Sándor “Bunyu” (1927) violin, voice
BODA Vilmos “Dándáló” (1927) viola
VARGA László “Raj” (1954) 3 stringed viola
VARGA Sándor “Pengő” (1929) double bass
BIRTALAN József (1955) voice, whistle