Music history of Hungary

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Little is known about Hungarian music prior to the 11th century, when the first

The first known example of exchange between Hungarian and Western European music is from the 13th century, the "first encounter with the more secular melodic world of the Western world".[1]

The earliest documented

Though virtually nothing is known about them, Hungarian

The 16th century saw the rise of Transylvania, a region the Turks never occupied, as a center for Hungarian music,^[2] as well as the first Hungarian publications of music, both published in Kraków. István Gálszécsi's songbook was the "first Hungarian gradual to the Gregorian hymn-melodies and German choral music of which we can see new Hungarian translations", while the Cronica of András Farkas includes the first surviving historical song.^[3] About forty melodies are known from this era, and are already in a distinctively Hungarian style which took influences from across much of Europe in several dozen distinct forms that were "mostly notated in a rigid and clumsy way" but were "undoubtedly much more colourful and flexible in living performance" and were in reality "little masterpieces of melodic structure".^[3] The most significant musician of this period was Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos, the "greatest stylist and master of expression of ancient Hungarian epic poetry... whose heritage the people's music of two centuries was unconsciously nourished".^[3]

Ferdinand I, which allowed the bishops to use them only after close scrutiny.^[3] They were again banned in 1611, however, and a Catholic collection of Hungarian church songs was not agreed upon until 1629, at the Synod of Nagyszombat. The collection, Benedek Szőlősy's Cantus Catholici, was published in 1651, and wasn't followed by a Protestant version for about 90 years.^[3]

Hungarian instrumental music was well known in Europe in the 16th century. The lutenist and composer

17th century Hungarian church music was revolutionized after the 1651 publication of the Cantus Catholici, in which genuine Hungarian motives played a major part. By 1674, the Hungarian Mass was also part of the Cantus Catholici, followed by the adoption of Calvinist psalm tunes in 1693 and Hungarian choral music in 1695.^[4] János Kájoni Organo Missale of 1667 was the first experiment in the creation of a new kind of Hungarian church music, a style that strung together short motives that were shortened, extended or syncopated in a complex rhythmic structure.^[4] Italian religious music played an important role in this development, which was documented in an "unparalleled example of ancient Hungarian music", the Harmonia Caelestis of Prince Pál Eszterházy,^[4] who tried to create a distinctively Hungarian style of church music using influences from opera, oratio literature, the German music of Johann Kaspar von Kerll and Johann Schmeltzer, and the oratorio and cantata styles.^[4] Eszterházy's efforts did not last, as the following century saw an influx of music from Western Europe under the Habsburgs.

Around the start of the 18th century, however, the last national uprising of the period occurred, leading the spread of "

During the 18th century, students at Hungary's Calvinist colleges, some of whom, being minor nobles, lived in small rural villages, brought with them to their schools their regional styles of music. Colleges like Sárospatak and Székelyudvarhely developed choirs that adopted new elements like polyphony. György Maróthi of Debrecen published several influential works, and his French psalm book became very popular.^[5] By around 1790, the four voice choirs were expanded to eight using accessory voices like accantus, subcantus and concantus, and the discant voice was systematically transpoed into a lower pitch, producing a new form of choral design with similarities to medieval organum and fauxbourdon.^[5] The same period saw the popularity of homophoning songs which are recorded in the students' song books; notation, however, was crude, and no extensive collection appeared until 1853, with the publication of Ádám Pálóczi Horváth's Ötödfélszáz Énekek.^[5] These songs show that the mid to late 18th century was a period when the old Hungarian styles died out, and a new style appeared.^[5]

Many Hungarian musicians and composers of the 18th century preached closer cultural ties with Europe, not believing that Hungarian music could reach the levels of development in Italy and Germany.

The 18th century also saw the rise of verbunkos, a form of music that was used by army recruiters. Like much of Hungarian music at the time, it was focused on the melody, with a subordinate text; in spite of this, the vocals became a major part of verbunkos.^[5]

19th century

By the middle of the 19th century, verbunkos was a major symbol of Hungarian culture, and numerous people published groundbreaking studies and collections of the field. The

In 1838, a young Franz Liszt was inspired to travel home to Hungary, studying the music of the country; he would go on to incorporate what he learned in many of his world-famous compositions.^[6] Other composers from this period included Béni Egressy, who used 18th century folk songs in his compositions, Kálmán Simonffy, who was the "most original and most inventive" songwriter of the era, whose works "most nearly approached the ideal of 'popular melodic culture', as well as lesser-known figures like Gusztáv Szénfy, Gusztáv Nyizsnyai and Ignác Bognár.^[6] In spite of their desires to glorify Hungarian folk culture, the music these composers used remained primarily the music of the middle and upper classes.^[6] It was not until the very end of the 19th century and into the 20th that the authentic music of ethnic Hungarians became a major part of compositions. Other Hungarian composers did not attempt to use verbunkos or other Hungarian styles in their music. German music was a much stronger influence on the music of the Catholic Church and in the songbooks of Mihály Bozóky.^[6]

The playwright