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Új Pátria New Patria Series Volumes 1 to 17

The Utolsó Óra - Final Hour Program, a comprehensive folk music collection. Professional support for the program has been provided by the Institute of Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Starting in September 1997, under the direction of folk music researcher László Kelemen, the traditional Transylvanian bands still in existence were brought to Budapest for recording sessions.

Interview with

Béla Halmos
of
Kalamajka Ensemble

In the early 1970s there flourished in Hungary an intense interest in the nation's folk culture and traditions, this interest giving birth to the táncház, or dance house, movement. The táncház movement was essentially a folk music revival with young people re-discovering their heritage and the research work by Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly, Zoltan Kallos and others. Of this folk music revival several names stand out one of which being Béla Halmos. In the following interview given by Béla in 1995 he talks about this movement, his discovery of the folk music he has dedicated his life to and some of the musicians and people that influenced him.

Today, as well as continuing musical studies at the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest, Béla leads the ensemble Kalamajka. Kalamajka hold a regular táncház (Dance House) and folk jam session every Saturday in central Budapest at Molnár utca 9. It is here that you can see and hear guest performances by traditional villagers or visiting folk bands.

The following is part one of a three part article first appearing in the magazine Karikazo. The interview was conducted by Sue Fekete with translation by Sue and Val Fekete in June 1995 at a music Symposium. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Val Fekete. (Note that the editor's notes in the text are those of Sue and Val.)

Interview with Béla Halmos at Symposium - June 1995

Sue Fekete (SF) I had the pleasure of talking with Béla Halmos this year (1995) at symposium. This article begins with his introduction to folk music.
(SF) Béla, how did you get involved or become familiar with folk music?
Béla Halmos (BH) Progressively. That is I didn't just happen to hear it one day from having had no previous knowledge of it, rather, I grew up in an environment in which folk music was as integral a part of our childhood curriculum as every other subject. My parents, an intellectual couple, were by profession an engineer and a teacher who (being a little after Bartok and Kodaly's generation) consciously cultivated all sorts of values in us. When a group of friends would come together they would sing like the "Kodalyosok" did. So as a matter of course for us, folk singing was an important part of culture, this was evident. I learned classical music early on, violin, etc, but although we lived 25 km from Mekerek I hadn't the foggiest idea, for example, what fantastic Romanian folk music was there. Genuine folk music wasn't propagated on radio or television and consequently it was not familiar to us. This was foremost due to financial constraints, but also to vanity. Thus if a composer wrote a score for a folk song, you know, put a bass line and 2 harmonies under it, then this was already something and worth money. This was one direction in which folk moved in. In the other direction were the Gypsy hands, the restaurant Gypsy bands. They played what they played, but this was already more and more a departure from the original. So, other than in programs or performances of Bartok or Kodaly, real, original folk music was rarely heard. I remember once my father and I heard a hurdy-gurdy, and my father described to me the instrument and what it was, but this type of music was not taught, not popular. The Kodaly method of singing was part of the educational system, music methodology builds on the fundamentals of folk songs, however that became compulsory and no one grew to like it. Because it was compulsory. you understand, and they did not sing like here (at Svmposium), well they didn't sing. So that one of this kind of experience that I had - they built up in layers - was that in our university years Sebo Feri and I were in an summer architectural camp in Acquincum (a Roman excavation), we were working and it was an international camp. There were Polish, Bulgarian. German, every type of nationals and in the evenings there was the usual campfire situation where everyone sings their own songs. The Hungarians didn't know anything, and what they did know, well that was pretty wishy-washy and we watched the Polish and Serbs. They enjoyed their songs so mach that it struck us, why is this, after all in Bartok and Kodalys’ home country.

Music is taught and still no-one knows it. This began to interest us, there were of course many influences, even beat music and rock music are things that brought something, that cultivated demand. So the situation was not one where we planned that we should now become folk musicians, but one in which we searched for a musical language which was also ours. Then Szorenvi's group began, llles’s, beat music and rock music come in. that was good, there was already a Hungarian reference with Szorenyi, but that was a different thing and what you heard on Hungarian radio or in restaurants that didn't interest us. And then the guitar became popular in Hungary. I was vacationing with Sebo once - his parents have a cottage on the Balaton - and at the time you could get these little folk song notebooks, these 'Virag' (flower) series that contained all types of folk music, these little books contained folk songs, scored but simplified of course. The words were there, the tune was there, but the essence of the folk song - the decoration, the rhythm, the presentation - was not there; only a sort of skeleton. So then we decided with Feri (Sebo) to accompany these with guitar, you see, because everyone liked the guitar. It had become very popular.

We'd just put a couple of harmonies under it, what if we could make it popular? I still have that little notebook in which the harmony is written. At that time Feri was already working on the poems of Jozsef Attila, he had begun his work as a composer. And then, and this is a beautiful story, I was summering in Gvula (because this is where I am from) and I was carrying the "Magyar Nemzet" newspaper under my arm on my way to the outhouse (editors licence), as one must after lunch, in the summer. I'm sitting and reading - I swear this is true - reading that the television is advertising some sort of contest, that there would he a folksong contest. And so lets say there is perhaps some sort of exhibitionism or something in a person to show what they can do, well, who can say, evidently there was. I had competed with classical guitar and violin so I said very good, a folk song contest, I'm into this - and I brought back half of the newspaper - and sent in the entry by post. I wasn't able to contact Sebo as he was working at another excavation in Szekesfehervar - he was fascinated by these archaeological architectural sites. So I entered the competition on my own.

And so I sent in my application, and another as well, for Feri and I as a duo. When we met again in Sept., Sebo, was into it, and in the mood, and we immediately prepared, I myself singing Hungarian songs accompanying myself on guitar, and together, we dug into all kinds of folk songs of Carpathian basin origin from Bulgarian to Gypsy, from Austrian to Dalmatian, after all, they had already beaten the Bartok program into us, thank God. So it was that the 'Repulj Pava' folk song competition starting in 1969, ending in 1970, was a huge surprise, for it was then that a famous article had appeared from the pen of an important ‘musical scholar', indicating that Socialist Hungary had now been rebuilt, the peasant class had disappeared, and all that had been, was gone, replaced by the modern socialist man.

Folk music was dead. Then along came the folk song festival to inordinate success, surprising everyone, not least the organiser. And it became a movement. Sebo and I didn't make the semi finals, only the quarter finals. We had lost out by then, because who after all cared about other nationalities folk music, they were happy that for once there was Hungarian folk music on television. (Ed. note: The Repulj Pava was a televised competition where the viewers would mail in ballots to choose their favourites.) I myself made it to the finals, I didn't win, but did make the finals. I was upset, although I did make the finals and there was of course the big discussion in the jury about the non-traditional guitar, the long hair, you remember, how is went, Beatles hair, horrible, we can't allow it, etc. But there were a few good heads as well, who took our participation as a good thing. But Feri and I being dropped early had us miffed. Obviously, that had something to do with our carrying on as well, you know, we'll show them, but too, we were legitimately interested. Our biggest problem however, was that we didn't know what we wanted, although we did know what we didn't want. Usually. That was very important. We didn't know yet we wanted a Tanchaz movement, but we did know we didn't want a gypsy band. Jazz wasn't our thing and for rock we were too late, I'd have loved to, I played guitar, but with Feri, we both knew we had to be serious, but the strings were tightening and we didn't know where we would be going.

There just wasn't any authentic folk, we didn't know what it sounded like, all we knew of was orchestrated folk. Kodaly and Bartok were okay, and perhaps a few others, but we had enough musical integrity to know the rest were just beating the dog because they could make a career of it. We could not get our hands on authentic recordings, there just wasn't anything available. Sarosi Balint who is a collector of instrumental folk music, had then begun a weekly radio series entitled ‘Our musical mother tongue', and therein he featured a selection of instrumental and vocal recordings to which Feri and I listened like mad. My sister in law worked at the radio from which archives we would get copies of recordings and from several branches then we began receiving some material, but there just wasn't anything we could easily get at. One day we're listening to Sarosi and we hear a Szeki lassu, Adam Icsan playing 'Le is szalnak fell is szalnak', and that was one of those moments. Good God, what was that? we'd never heard anything like it, didn't know what it was, it was beautiful, but what was it? Where was it? (Ed. Note: Adam Icsann, Szeki primas, latter would become Halmos's teacher)

Here is an example of what it was like. Feri was the music director for the country's only avant-garde modern theatre and they were doing a Chinese opera and required an instrument that would provide continuous background. Feri had run into a Belgian musician, very famous for his hurdy gurdy (Tekero) playing, and asked where he might get one of these. He replied, right here in Tisza ujfalu, Miska Bacsi makes them. He was just going to pick one up for himself. So that's how it was, no one had a clue about these things, well outside the 5 or 6 knowledgeable collectors, so that a Belgian is introducing us to our own folklore and that's how we met Miska Bacsi. So there we are running around in circles, when one of my friends Kosa Laszlo says he knows of one Martin György, not personally but there is a mutual acquaintance, and that we should go see him. Then of course this rings a bell because some of these collectors were on the jury and they liked us and so lots of little things were coming together, good vibes and good feelings began pushing us in a direction. He insisted we go see him, he told us he had a son about our age, ‘plays guitar and there will be three of you’. Obviously Feri and I who were already ‘somebody's' by this point, didn't want another guitarist to be a millstone around our necks, who needs the aggravation etc., and put off going for several months. But there was still no material, so, let's see him, let's see him, finally we went to see him. We went up to Martins' apartment, knocked, and the eminent Dr. Martin György, Dance Scholar, thin bespeckled man, peering over his glasses, opened the door and said ‘sziasztok, come on in'. Five minutes later we were flat on our stomachs on his study carpet listening to a Keserves. Zerkula singing 'orosz orszag nem jo hejt van'. I'm lying there trying to write down the words, and it was like falling headlong into the honey pot.

From that point on, the world just opened up. Tinka (Martin) of course was the father, he must have thought here's a couple of idiots. From their perspective there were maybe 15 of them at the academy whom this stuff interested and a few others that worked at it, and no one else. But everything was in motion, Kalos was already working, Novak was going regularly to Szek, so things were impending. We didn't give birth to the movement, we just showed up and bang. Through Martin we were introduced to Timar (Ed. Note: Timar Sandor, was at that time running the Bartok Egy. at the time Hungary's premier amateur group and birth place of the movement), who by that point had fired all the teachers, got rid of the gypsy band, and was looking for musicians. This was a very important developmental step, it was after all where we trained ourselves, and the other musicians. So we went to work there, Feri to be music director, I was music supervisor, whatever, it was irrelevant, Vilagvolgyi Marti was already there. Then in order came Muszikas, Teka, Janosi, Okros, everybody for a long while came up there in the Bartok. The courses began later in 1976. It was from this that everything started off down the proper road. This is what was so important for the success of the Tanchaz movement both home and abroad, that with Tinka and the academy crowd, the musicologists etc., that the movement had such a knowledgeable and deep base, that they didn't allow us to slide off into tasteless or foolish tangents, but that we went down appropriate paths in other words, they were professionals. This then was the model, and a model now recognised the world over, wherein everything is recorded documented, classified, where the best is selected, the best, the most significant, the most advanced, and so forth. But not just to study it scientifically and to publish and theorise, but to immediately turn around and bring it to life. Folk music is not the subject of folk music collection, just as a folk song is not the subject of a vocal music class. It is a joy, it is emotion. We don't collect folk dance so that a few scholars make a living of it, write about it and receive the Kossuth Award, although there is nothing wrong with that, and we require that too, but we have to bring it back to where it belongs. People have lost this, not just in Hungary and socialism, but altogether, with radio TV and the technology of our times, this confuses people. They don't know, what we already know. The greatest, show or musical or entertainment isn't worth a hat full of excrement. What is of value is that which we create together, when we are together. Making music, dancing, making love, whatever, everything that's important. Even pornography is electronically given to you. There is no value in watching it, go do it, that has value. People have almost forgotten. This work must be done professionally. That is very important. Earlier, it was the parent handed it down to the child. A kid in Szek for instance did not go to camps or workshops to learn to dance, sing, csujogat, etc. but from toddlerhood on they grew into it systematically, they don't even know anything else. Today however, since we are able to travel, and TV lays everything in front of you, it is no longer that I live here in Kentucky, let's say, and this is the only music I know, and there is no other, but rather everything is now available, and this can confuse. If the material is not knowledgeably examined and classified, and taught, people can go off course, therefore, it is important to know the rules, the progressions, the values of the material you work with. 

(SF) Can you tell us a little of your current work?
(BH) From the time I began playing folk, and began working with Martin, I had started collecting. Later when folk music no longer interested only us but others also, I began to teach. Then when the situation developed four or five years ago to where we were allowed to put this material on TV, I got involved in propagating folk to TV audiences by producing television programs. From all of this I had incurred a significant work load. Which is good in that it shows not that Halmos Bela is a great head, but that people need what we discovered and which came together for us. But it has been a huge amount of work. Last year, or just before that, I concluded that I had to restrict myself again in what I could do, it just wouldn’t work that I could accomplish everything I wanted, so I had to pick and choose what I could do. As in 1979 when I left Feri, left the Sebo band, I knew I required a looser connection so that my main activity could be other than playing day and night. It had come to pass that there was a great need to do work in collecting instrumental folk music. And that was what interested me. I got into that, and then I received a scholarship and began working as a graduate student towards my doctorate, and as well, continued to play Tanchaz etc. So all this is to say I had become a very specialized commodity by then, and just couldn't do everything, there being only 24 hours in 24 hours. So I restricted myself to working as a folk music collector. It's typical that the Hungarian Scientific Academy, folk music division, ran out of money, cut back funding in the usual places, and let me go in 1990. The tragedy of all this being of course that the instrumental folk collection which is vast, is just sitting there. There is a huge amount of work to be done, but they have eliminated the division. And that is the area that would have needed the most attention, vocal music and dance have been coming along very nicely, comparatively. So I came to the Hungarian Cultural Institute, to their instrumental folk section where that remains my chief activity. This came about in somewhat revolutionary circumstances following the election of our first democratic government, whereupon they cleaned house at the institute, and I had telephoned Andrasfalvi Bercibacsi (Ed. Note: Andrasfalvi Bertalan then Minister of Culture), and with his assistance, managed to get the position. Not you understand, because I needed a job, I could always find something to do, but because that aspect of activity was gone and we needed his help so that we could carry on. In truth, you find in me the same type of man as Martin was (only he was somewhat more talented), that collecting and the movement go together. In other words. I collect, I play and I teach which is very important, that's the model, that's when it works best. So I was hired by the institute where things were really quite a mess. I appropriated a room, named myself the instrumental folk music collecting department, with Viragvolgyi Marti, who faithfully churns out those little note books and Lovrince Andras an outstanding primers and collector. They gave me a little money, I bought a few machines, video and sound recording equipment, tapes, etc. with the help of a few grants. It's not much mind you, but better than in the old days when we paid for everything ourselves. That is the main endeavour, and there is so much to be done here, that if I had nothing else to do, and I lived for another hundred years, there would still be a lot to do. I decided that I would not be the type of scholar, nor do I qualify to be one, that knows everything. I've done it, (scholarship), gotten my degree and so forth and it's done. The thesis is good but I'm not a scholar. I'm not one for papers and conferences, and I don't hold to a publication being a written format, where the music too is written because this used to be the goal.

I know now specifically that video is the answer, or film. There is no point in writing the score to a folk tune and then have someone learn to read it, and then try to interpret what it sounded like. Because you can't. you can't even write down my letter ‘a' sound very accurately, never mind music, and then write scholarly tomes about it. Rather here. I'll show you a Kalotaszegi legenyes, here is Neti Sanyi, this is how he plays it, this is how he moves his hand, you see it, and you hear it. Sure you have to score it and write an analysis of it, but this seeing it, completes it. This is very important, this is a whole new realm. Then there is the TV. Several of us including Szomyas Gyuri, who is my director, (also by chance an architect turned film director), who was already with us in 1972 in Szek, applied for an opportunity for a cultural magazine TV program as they slowly revised TV programming. So many of us now love this music but others know nothing about it. We wanted to show people what it's about. This too is a publication. This then is another career but figure this, we are currently working for two stations - that's two programs a month, and you must assume at least two weeks work per program. Then of course every Saturday, tanchaz. I've been playing with Kalamajka since Szekely Levente left. They needed a primas so every weekend from September to June is taken up. These then are my three main careers.

As for collecting, my thoughts are constantly on how this can be done. What I am racking my brains about is where I can find sufficient funds to complete the work of collecting. We would need somewhere between 30 and 50 million forints, which really is not a lot in the nation's budget, but this would he sufficient to allow us to properly equip a musician, and now with video camera, to travel around and finally complete the work properly. It can still be done. It is still available now. I say now because as we have spoken of hagyomonv, this material has been handed down as an oral tradition. Traditionally you went to a musician to learn it. Today, if you want to learn a tune, you get a tape recording of it. This will make folk music something entirely different in the future, I don't know yet what it will be, but today those musicians that learned it in the traditional classic manner are still with us. 

(SF) That is the one important reason this work needs to be done now. Bela, after all these years, what keeps you motivated?
(BH) (Laughs) Why aren't I bored? Well I try to keep versatile, moving about between collecting, teaching, playing etc. The question presupposes the answer that I love it. Which in fact is obvious - after all, I gave up a career as an architect to do this, and it is not something I do for myself, playing alone in a room for my own amusement. For twenty-five years now I've been playing for all of you, and I see on your faces that you love it. And you pay me as well. That is not a bad thing either. 

(SF) How has your style changed over the years?
(BH) Certainly it has evolved, from being a classic violinist early on. I quickly realized it was not possible to play folk in that style, and therefore I began working with rhythms or decorations, whatever, and I listened and collected, and I played to dancers. The rhythm of a 'Lassu Magyaros' for example, cannot be explained. Try getting a classic musician to play one for you from a score, and see what you get. But once I saw what dancers were doing with it, I understood it. Later, there were these charges that we were only imitators, that we imitated Neti Sanyi, or Adam Istvan (Icsan) and so forth. Music is like language. A child imitates it's parents to learn. Once it gets to the point that it has a grasp of the language, it can then speak on it's own, and it can then be said that the daughter or son has their own style.

Then there is another problem. Let's take Gyimesi. How should I play Gyimesi? I should play Gyimesi like it's played in Gyimes. Should I then learn to play like Zerkula, or Halmagyi, or Pulika, or who? Kalotaszegi. Neti, Csipas, Arrus or one of the other thirty-eight? We strived, I strived, naturally, to learn each dialect stylistically, faithfully. One cannot. In a village, a Gypsy will serve three or four nationalities, let us say, Hungarians, Gypsies, Rumanians, perhaps Saxons (szasz). He might cover thirty or so villages, and know those well enough that he will know everyone's favorite tune. And that is about the capacity of a human head. I myself know about ten dance cycles, but I don't know any of them well. I mean that in respect to its proper style. I don't play Szeki as I learned it from Adam Icsan. Similar obviously, but not true. And from this there are sometimes these challenges that I don't play as it is (now) taught. Of course the way I learned it was that Timar would announce that for next practice there would be a Kalotaszegi Legenyes, and I would hurry home and quickly write up a few tunes, take them to practice next day and play it. There was no time. I could not say, hold on I want to look at this. I became a quick study. I learned to learn quickly, superficially if you like, but as such, I have developed a mind boggling skill in so doing. The funny thing is, that after very many years, I discovered that what I was doing was at such a high level. (and I mean here mentally, not musically), that I had inadvertently reached the same plateau as those Gypsies, our masters. He plays the way he plays. I have, for a few years now, played like Halmos Bela. I don't play that little piece like Hodoba Bela, I play it like I play it. That is not to say of course that if I had a few years I would be averse to picking up on this or that, and certainly it doesn’t mean that there is a problem here. I'm not exactly an amateur. But I would say that at some level, if you want to learn Kalotaszegi, go see Okros or Bea. Good Question.

(SF) What is happening today within the Tanchaz Movement?
(BH) This is a frequently asked question, and the responses may recognize problems here or there, but in reality, we’ve never had so many bands, so many Tanchazak ever. There are now not just Hungarian, but every type of Tanchaz from Jewish to Gypsy. Within the Hungarian, there are now dialect specific houses, Gyimesi for instance, where the Tatros band plays great music, the Muzsikas Tanchaz is now more a club where one goes to listen, but you're welcome to dance if the mood takes you, and so forth. There are several folk music schools, and as well even classical schools throughout the country offer folk classes where teachers are available. And the teaching methodology is good. In fact we are using Suzuki, modified of course, what can I say, it's great. We need this, we need more of it. Now don't get me wrong, I certainly am not saving, and God forbid that I should turn on the radio and hear Szeki blasting out of it. No. What the goal is however, is that every child, every person, recognize it. And to this end we need more professionals. We cannot progress farther, because there are still too few of us. But all in all I am well satisfied.

(Ed's note: This concludes the interview with Béla Halmos. We hope that our translation efforts have been of sufficient skill as to impart to the reader something of the scope and character of one of the true Pioneers of the movement.)


End

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