Hungary

Hungary is part of Central Europe, not the Balkans. We include Hungary here anyway because (1) we love Hungarian music and (2) some Hungarian music reflects Balkan influences, especially in the Dunántúl.
MUSIC AND FOLKLORE
  • Magyar Folklor offers information about upcoming performances by and workshops with Hungarian dancers and musicians in the U.S.
  • Életfa is a well-known Hungarian táncház band in New York with a new CD
  • Barátság is a Hungarian dance and music camp held each summer near Mendocino, California
  • Dances of Jászság and Songs of Jászság, by Mike Gordon
  • Csárdás, a touring production of the Budapest Ensemble
  • A gallery of old engravings of Hungarian musicians, from Mike's collection (page includes 305Kb in images)
  • A táncház page from Hungary...at last! With links to several bands, including:
    • Bekecs ("...founded in a bar with the participation of four small bottles of Gösser beer" -- we like these guys already)
    • Csik Orchestra, from Kecskemét
    • Jártató
    • Méta
    • Téka
    • Zurgó
    • And, now for something completely different, the Hungarian Hurdy-Gurdy Orchestra, a slightly scary thought (you've probably heard the old joke: "How long does it take to tune a hurdy-gurdy? ... Nobody knows")
  • Széki Kurva calls itself London's finest Hungarian band; New Musical Express called them "probably the best Hungaro-folk, jungle, swingbeat, techno thrash metal band [from Essex] in the world"; here's how they turned a melody for Széki csárdás into a song called Goat Dance (383Kb .au file)
  • And here's a Kalotaszegi szapora melody in MIDI format, from the Wisconsin band Szeszka
  • Lyrics and sound files for Hungarian songs from Szabadka (Subotica, Vojvodina), collected by David N. Biacsi
  • Figurás, a Hungarian dance ensemble in Bern, Switzerland
  • Csárdás Dance Company, a Hungarian ensemble in Cleveland, Ohio, USA
  • Lyrics for 39 Magyar folk songs, many of them Transylvanian dance songs from táncház recordings, compiled by Thomas Toth
  • A discussion of the origins of Hungarian music, by Fred Hámori
  • The Hungarian Music Home Page
  • The Hungarian Music Page offers some historical information (including the theory that Hungarian music has Central Asian roots) and sound samples
  • Hungary Arts, from Informest in Italy
  • Internet Táncklub: t@nc offers information on dance clubs of all types in Hungary (in Hungarian)
  • You can order Hungarian music cassettes from Blue Danube Gifts. Skip past the restaurant acts to the Magyar Népzene heading, with recordings by Tilinkó, Délibáb and Életfa, then skip down farther for a videocassette (format unknown) of the Kodály Folk Dance Ensemble with the Ökrös Orchestra
  • Brian Sutin's page on the tárogató, the Hungarian woodwind that resembles a cross between a clarinet and a soprano sax (and looks like this)
  • The Homepage of Magyar Organic Culture in Debrecen, with a 2:44, 1.8Mb .wav file of a song from Mezőség, featuring singers and koboz from the Morotva ensemble, with lyrics and translation:

      Waters flowing from the Tisza to the Danube,
      What is the reason for your tears, my young rose?
      How should I not cry and despair, my treasure,
      I was just going to love you, but you are leaving.

GENERAL INFORMATION