Page 178 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2021. Opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama ▪︎ Operetta between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 5
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opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama
Bartók Concerto
The Lovely Hungary song could have disappeared in the four decades of
State Socialism, since as an operetta it was mediocre, and as an irredentist
song, illegal, but in an extraordinary turn of events no less than Béla Bartók
contributed to its survival. The fourth movement of his 1945 concerto clear-
ly, recognisably evokes the first bars of the song, and this has prompted se-
rious and ongoing debates in musical theory and history circles for almost
eighty years. First, we must decide who the melody belongs to. Bartók liter-
ature refers to Lovely Hungary as a motif of homesickness, which is either
“a rhythmically Romanian version of a stereotypically irredentist Hungari-
an musical reminiscence”28 or it may be Romanian in its melody.29 A leg-
endary conductor of the concerto, György Solti, explained that “the penta-
tonically expressed Hungarian emotions are followed by a fourth movement,
the scherzo, jest, often in 5/4 and 5/8 time”, and calls it Bulgarian.30 Howev-
er, it is possible that the concerto features the exact same notes as the first
few bars of Lovely Hungary completely by accident.31 It was Hungarians liv-
ing in emigration during the State Socialist era who found it important to
untangle the origins of Bartók’s homesickness motif,32 and this confirms
that it is not solely its status as an irredentist symbol, but its historical rele-
vance to national identity that keeps the song of Kulinyi and Vincze in the
memory-machine.33
The End of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
and the End of Austro-Hungarian Operetta
In the wake of the First World War, Hungary was not yet defined by the
trauma of Trianon, the Treaty of Versailles and the brief 1919 period of So-
viet rule, but by the fact of spatial nonexistence, nowhereness. With the dis-
28 László Stachó, “Szép vagy, gyönyörű vagy... Magyarország?” Muzsika 49, no. 5
(2006): 36.
29 Ferenc László, “Rumänische Stilelemente in Bartóks Musik - Fakten und Deutun-
gen,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 36, no. 3–4 (1995):
413–28, https://doi.org/10.2307/902223.
30 Guillem Calaforra, “Bartók in Budapest Concerto for orchestra Solti,” 1 February
2019, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQb3VUljpa0&ab_channel=-
GuillemCalaforra.
31 George Feyer, “Olvasói levél,” Irodalmi Újság 11, no. 3 (1965): 8.
32 Béla Bartók, “Concertóról,” in Bartók Béla Összegyűjtött írásai I, ed. András Szől-
lőssy (Budapest: Zeneművészeti, 1966), 790, 437.
33 István Angi, “A bartóki iróniáról,” Korunk 23, no. 3 (1981): 91.
176
Bartók Concerto
The Lovely Hungary song could have disappeared in the four decades of
State Socialism, since as an operetta it was mediocre, and as an irredentist
song, illegal, but in an extraordinary turn of events no less than Béla Bartók
contributed to its survival. The fourth movement of his 1945 concerto clear-
ly, recognisably evokes the first bars of the song, and this has prompted se-
rious and ongoing debates in musical theory and history circles for almost
eighty years. First, we must decide who the melody belongs to. Bartók liter-
ature refers to Lovely Hungary as a motif of homesickness, which is either
“a rhythmically Romanian version of a stereotypically irredentist Hungari-
an musical reminiscence”28 or it may be Romanian in its melody.29 A leg-
endary conductor of the concerto, György Solti, explained that “the penta-
tonically expressed Hungarian emotions are followed by a fourth movement,
the scherzo, jest, often in 5/4 and 5/8 time”, and calls it Bulgarian.30 Howev-
er, it is possible that the concerto features the exact same notes as the first
few bars of Lovely Hungary completely by accident.31 It was Hungarians liv-
ing in emigration during the State Socialist era who found it important to
untangle the origins of Bartók’s homesickness motif,32 and this confirms
that it is not solely its status as an irredentist symbol, but its historical rele-
vance to national identity that keeps the song of Kulinyi and Vincze in the
memory-machine.33
The End of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
and the End of Austro-Hungarian Operetta
In the wake of the First World War, Hungary was not yet defined by the
trauma of Trianon, the Treaty of Versailles and the brief 1919 period of So-
viet rule, but by the fact of spatial nonexistence, nowhereness. With the dis-
28 László Stachó, “Szép vagy, gyönyörű vagy... Magyarország?” Muzsika 49, no. 5
(2006): 36.
29 Ferenc László, “Rumänische Stilelemente in Bartóks Musik - Fakten und Deutun-
gen,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 36, no. 3–4 (1995):
413–28, https://doi.org/10.2307/902223.
30 Guillem Calaforra, “Bartók in Budapest Concerto for orchestra Solti,” 1 February
2019, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQb3VUljpa0&ab_channel=-
GuillemCalaforra.
31 George Feyer, “Olvasói levél,” Irodalmi Újság 11, no. 3 (1965): 8.
32 Béla Bartók, “Concertóról,” in Bartók Béla Összegyűjtött írásai I, ed. András Szől-
lőssy (Budapest: Zeneművészeti, 1966), 790, 437.
33 István Angi, “A bartóki iróniáról,” Korunk 23, no. 3 (1981): 91.
176
