Today I want to jump onto the trend of Music Monday, and present some tunes that to me have the ring of distant childhood memories. They are traditional Hungarian folk songs from the 19th century, played on a less known instrument, the zither.
A zither is basically a rectangular wooden resonating chamber with a number of strings stretched across the top, plucked and strummed with a pick in a horizontal position, usually lying on a table. It originated in the Alpine regions of Bavaria and Austria, from where it was adapted by neighboring regions (though admittedly, a similar instrument called guqin was also known in China in the 5th century B.C.). There are a number of variants to this instrument, some more rounded, others even played upright, depending on the region, and hence the music played on it changes considerably too.
I want to give a few examples of the zither music my grandfather used to play. He was passionate about Hungarian music, and would accompany my grandmother’s singing on the instruments he used to build himself. He tried to pass on his love for the zither to me, but unfortunately at that time it fell onto deaf ears. (Not actually deaf, not even tone-deaf, just simply uninterested.)
Richárd Szanics – Tunes from Kalotaszeg
One excellent example I found of the kind of tunes that touch your heart (or mine at least) is played by this talented Musician. The music from the town of Kalotaszeg, located in Eastern Hungary, though today it's part of Romania. Very typically it is a simple tune, quite repetitive, played slowly or fast, gradually increasing in complexity. The video also offers a nice view of how the instrument is played.
Alexandra Berta and Mátyás Bolya – Old Hungarian Dances
According to my grandparents, in the “old days” people would hang out in front of their houses on Sunday afternoons, and the women would sing the songs while the men played them on the zither. Although there are numerous examples of men singing as well, this is the line-up I knew from my childhood, as presented by this great duo.
Cimbora Orchestra – Military Music from 1848
What sounds great on two zithers surely can’t sound bad on nine, as presented by this group from Mezőtúr (Eastern Hungary). The music has a certain upbeat cheerfulness to it, not surprisingly, since it originated as recruitment music in the 18th century. Back then recruiters would come into the village, and get young men drunk while playing this happy music, and before they knew it, half the town was signed up to the military. Ironically, the lyrics of these songs have been changed around to recruit Hungarians for the revolution of 1848, AGAINST the Habsburg empire. In either case, hearing these tunes would make me easily take up arms for the emperor, or against him, whichever case it may be.
Citerion - Puszta Illegal Professional
So what has become of the zither today? Less it gets buried in the memory of times gone by, only dug up by guys in white shirts and black waste-coats, here’s one attempt to give it a modern touch. In this video the group Citerion combine traditional zither tunes with electronic sounds as well as metal. At first I thought it was too much, then it started growing on me. Why not? It also has neat visual touches of a traditional peasant house, lots of farm animals, as well as the ubiquitous white-shirt-black-waste-coat clad Hungarian.
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