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Potta Géza
 - Születtem mint prímás... Born like a prímás...

by
Péter Árendás

This article was first published by the folk music ensemble Ifjú Szivek Magyar Táncegyüttes (Ifjú Szivek Hungarian Dance Group) on the now defunct web site www.ifjuszivek.sk. It is a profile of the rural Gypsy violinist, or prímás, Géza Potta, from a village on the Hungarian-Slovakian border. The text refers to his solo CD, available here. Special thanks to Konrad Rigo for permission to re-produce this article. 

Potta Géza - Születtem mint prímás... Born like a prímás


A portrait of a musician. An unconventional folk music album. These recordings introduce Géza Potta and his music, a rural Gypsy violinist (prímás) from a village in Abaúj (the region straddling the Hungarian-Slovakian border south of Košice). He is the kind of musician who could have been found by the hundred in the olden days of Hungary. They spent their whole lives serving and entertaining their village audiences and were esteemed members of the community when there was a constant demand for them and their music. However, after this demand diminished their musical knowledge was no longer handed down and now only a few of them are left – among them one of the most accomplished and versatile of musicians, who can be heard on this album.

Duna Karnevál, Budapest, 2003

Géza Potta was born in Abaújszina on 25th February, 1933. He has been playing music since he was five years old, gaining his knowledge from the older generation of well-known Gypsy violinists. Besides his confident violin playing and virtuosity he ids also a splendid singer and quickly casts a spell of cheerfulness over any gathering. It is no wonder that he was such a well-liked and busily employed musician not only in Abaújszina but also throughout the surrounding countryside. He often performed together with the local dance group and for the last two years or so he has regularly been a guest musician with the Bratislava-based Ifjú Szivek Hungarian Dance Group. The first recording featuring him that we are aware of, however, was made relatively recently – on this album we can hear a czardas sequence (track 3) that was collected by the Varsányi Band at the Gombaszög Festival in 1986. Since then from the 1990s he has been a regular guest – together with his viola player – at various folk festivals and music camps, wide-ranging repertoire has been presented by collectors – primarily Gergely Agócs – in many hours of recordings.


Csemadok táncház, Pozsony, 2003

Professional Gypsy musicians depended on their musical activities to earn their livelihood, the bulk of their income: the better they could satisfy the demands of their customers, the more invitations they received. This is the reason that these musicians are not strictly “traditional”, since they adjusted their repertoire to fit the prevailing expectations. The wider the range of music a musician could present to his audiences and the greater the number of melodies he knew, the more he could earn – regardless of the age or the intrinsic value of the tunes. This “musical multilingualism” also characterizes the repertoire of Géza Potta. At a wedding party authentic folk songs and “composed songs” (songs composed in folk style) sat together perfectly well, side by side, and completely different music accompanied the merry-making of, for example, the Gypsy and the Slovakian populations. In this respect, this album endeavors to paint a complete picture, presenting something from each musical world. After all, musician, a village “informant”, is not a nameless individual who only “provides” information, but a creative artist who produces something new and unique fro the musical tools at his disposal, weaving his own personality and musicianship into his performance. This is especially true of Géza Potta and his violin playing.


Potta Géza, Pozsony, 2003

On this album we can hear Hungarian folk songs, both archaic and new style (tracks 7, 8, 19). These are all instrumental, ornamented variants of particular song melodies. Genuine folk songs, however, are often entirely intermingled with composed songs (also known as Hungarian songs) – the villagers knew them as well as (if not better!) and sang them as often as the former, so the band constantly played them (track 1, 9, 10). Since there are also many Slovaks living in the area beside the Hungarian population, Géza Potta has adopted a few tunes from this musical world as well (track 11, 12). These particular musicians, however, rarely stepped over the sharp language boundary, so the majority of their Slovak repertoire consists of commonly used and widely known melodies. Naturally, Gypsy tunes constitute one of the most characteristic components of the musicians´ repertoire (tracks 2-6, 17). These are tunes that the Gypsies perceive and hold as their own, although many of them can be traced back to Hungarian folk songs. In Géza Potta´s treasury of tunes we can also find more “modern” numbers as well. We can hear interpretation of popular hit tunes taken from the radio, as well as film music (tracks 13-16). Although these song melodies might appear to be out of place on folk music CD, they belong to the overall musical picture because of the brilliant sense of style and inventive of the performer. A fascinating example of reconstruction can be heard when he sings a pop song with his own Gypsy text (track 15).

In 2003 Géza Potta celebrated his 70th birthday. His old musical colleagues have already passed away and at the end of November 2002 “Pimasz” Géza Dzsuga, who was regarded as his life-long viola-playing partner, left him alone for good. We wish Géza Potta health and happiness and we hope that he will delight us all with his music for a long time to come.

Track listing:
1. 'Csárdások simán' (lassú és gyors csárdás) (5'40") (mp3 sample)
2. 'Sipljakate, sipljakate... ' (cigány nóta) (1'14")
3. Potta Géza zenekara 1986-ban (lassú és gyors csárdás) (1'25") (mp3 sample)
4. 'Motoris, motoris... ' (cigány nóta) (0.50")
5. 'Ciriklóri, miriknori... ' (cigány hallgató, lassú és gyors csárdás) (4'40")
6. Cigány foxok (4'03")
7. Áji nóták (lassú és gyors csárdás) (4'04")
8. Hallgató és györkei verbunk (4'32")
9. 'Libás nóták' (lassú és gyors csárdás) (3'40")
10. 'Bakanóták' (lassú és gyors csárdás) (4'42")
11. 'Duvás nóták' (szlovák krucena) (3'30")
12. Cardas a szlovákoknak (lassú és gyors csárdás) (4'26")
13. 'Bolyongok a város közepén' (1'57") (mp3 sample)
14. 'Kincses Kolozsvár' (2'09")
15. 'Ó, mano, mano' (2'23")
16. 'Bugi' (2'23")
17. Balogás emlékére (cigány hallgató,lassú és gyors csárdás) (7'59")
18. 'Pimasz vagyok mostanáig' (0'49")
19. Pimasz emlékére (magyarbodi csárdások) (2'47")

The CD 'Szulettem mint primas' (FESZCD03) can be purchased here.

End

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