2 - Verbunkos

Summary

Following in the footsteps of past collectors of folk music, Liszt decided sometime in 1847 that the new cycle of Hungarian Rhapsodies he was planning would need an explanatory note or short essay describing its provenance and character, as well as the advantages of his own approach to its arrangement for piano. The essay grew into a lengthy book that was published only in 1859, long after the final version of the Rhapsodies (1851–53). Entitled Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie, it created a huge controversy in Hungary about the claim that the country's folk music was created by its Romani musicians, and the greatly expanded second edition (1881) brought with it an additional uproar about its anti-Semitic content (for which Liszt was probably not responsible). In the heat of these scandals it was forgotten that Liszt also tried to explain the stylistic and aesthetic importance of verbunkos to contemporary composition, particularly its “savage” virtuosity, ornamental and improvisational techniques, peculiar intervals rooted in modality, and sudden transitions to unusual keys. On this topic, Liszt's message came back to the same point: past transcribers who tried to rationalize and correct whatever seemed wrong or alien had missed the opportunity to discover new kinds of unknown beauty. Theoretical rules that applied to canonic Western music were simply in the way, as “in certain cases the beautiful can only be beautiful if it freed itself from certain made-up proscriptions.”

Liszt presented himself as having some direct and unadulterated link to the oral tradition and the great verbunkos virtuosos, unlike the “incorrigibles correcteurs” who “mutilated” and “effaced” the most characteristic elements of this music, or even unlike great and respected predecessors like Beethoven and Schubert who, according to Liszt, did not fully understand what could be done with such music. The argument is cemented by the case he makes for being uniquely positioned to do the music justice. He was himself a wild musical growth that bowed to no academic rule in search of the beautiful, and above all he was a native Hungarian: he grew up with this music before leaving the country in 1823, and when he returned in 1840, he immediately sought out the musicians who so fascinated him in his childhood.