A Beautiful Rose Blossoms
Christmas Music from the old Hungary
A Beautiful Rose Blossoms
Christmas Music from the old Hungary
Old Hungarian Christmas
music contains an unmistakable depth and universally human element.
Practically all registers of human emotion find expression in these
dulcet tones. Deeply mystical, extremely joyful emotional beatitude and
youthfully innocent joviality coexist side by side. Folk elements are
effortlessly mixed with the highly stylized, archaic and pagan elements
are blended together with Christian. The various influences meld with
natural ease and versatility!
Our timeframe is virtually unlimited. It begins with the ancient and
archaic and extends to include music of the 18th century, whereby the
individual pieces only rarely enjoy a specific date. That which sounds
old can just as easily be new and that which sounds new could have it
origins in times long past.
Most of the Christmas pieces stem from the realm of Hungarian
folk music, whose treasure trove of melodies is one of the
richest in the world. It spans from the simplest, quasi minimalist
structures, to complicated and broadly arranged melodic compositions.
This world of sounds appears as a wonderfully large puzzle, just as the
Hungarian people and their language do, direct on our borders in the
middle of Europe. Origin and age are not always capable of being
discerned. The hint of an ancient musical realm blends almost
seamlessly with that of the new. In particular, Bartók
and Kodály are to receive credit for calling
attention to this treasure and guaranteeing its status as a living
tradition.
We have supplemented the essentially monophonic folk music
with polyphonic pieces from the Middle Ages and Baroque. Novus
annus adiit, Rotulus and In hoc anni circulo
are drawn from an upper-Hungarian manuscript from the early 15th
century, the time of Sigismund, the Roman Emperor of the German Nation
and King of Hungary. They show the relatively late adaptation of the
French Ars Antiqua in Hungary. Rotulus
is canonical in its influence. The versions comprised of four vocals,
mostly German church songs, are part of the Graduale of
Eperjes (1635). A colourful mixture of Hungarian and German
songs accompanies the Latin Church music (Halljatok
Mennyégből, Nekünk ez napon, Mind ez világ). The subsequent
16th century Almande is meant to demonstrate the
older origin of Mind ez világ. The three pieces for
the organ (Fiant Domine, Fantasia, Kyrie) are taken
from the Codex Kájoni. János Kájoni,
a Catholic priest, was an organist, organ builder, philosopher,
theologian, printer and painter. His Cantionale Catholicum
is a voluminous collection of Catholic hymns, the melodies of which
are, at least in part, likely taken from the folk tradition and in
certain cases were taken up into the folk song tradition. The Codex
Kájoni contains, among other things, a series of – mostly
anonymous – pieces for the organ, predominantly for use in the church.
René Clemencic
(Translation: Maurice Sprague)