Search - Csurgo Zenekar :: Folk Music From Hungary

From Hungary?

Alexius | 03/10/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"There is something very curious about this CD.



According to the title, it contains folk music FROM HUNGARY; but, in fact, of the 9 tracks on the disc, only 2 are from Hungary -- the rest are from Hungarian minorities in Romania, Slovakia (and possibly Moldova), ie, very much from OUTSIDE Hungary.



This is not a minor issue. Territories like Transylvania (now part of Romania) and Felvidék (now part of Slovakia) were once part of Hungary, and irredentist passions in Hungary still sometimes poison the latter's relations with her northern and eastern neighbours. To say that folk music from Felvidék, from Bukovina, or from Transylvania is folk music "from Hungary" is to subscribe to a political programme which has nothing to do with the music itself. It is also not an accident of translation -- the booklet makes no mention whatever of the fact that Transylvania is now part of Romania, but does speak of "Transylvanian and mainland Hungarian village musicians" (Hungary is a land-locked country); and it describes Moldavia as "part of old Hungary", which is historically as accurate as describing France as "part of old England".



The music itself is, for the most part, authentic and well performed (track 7 being a notable exception); but the instrumentarium is modern acoustic, with the exception of a tambura (tamburica), featured on track 2. (Instruments often associated with Hungarian folk music, such as the tárogató or cimbalom, are absent, the latter being replaced by the guitar.) Unfortunately, the vocal parts do not match the excellence of the instrumental playing, and the group would benefit greatly from the addition of a first class singer.



The recording (made at the Drummondville CEGEP in Québec) is very good, and the multi-lingual booklet is (with the reservations noted above) reasonably substantial; it includes the sung Hungarian texts but, unfortunately, not all are fully translated.

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