Articles by Initial Letters

The story of the Utolsó Óra/Final Hour  traditional village music collection project

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“This special issue of folkMAGazin publishes interviews conducted in October 2024 – with some of the creators, organizers and supporters of [Hungary’s] Utolsó Óra/Final Hour folk music collection project. Herein are [the interviewees’] specific recollections related to the project – on the initial planning, communication, meetings, experiences, the work done in the field and at the Fonó [the documentation venue], and making the resulting series of records. They also addressed the reception, impact on the dance house movement and future of this special collection project and the resulting “Új Pátria” CD series [a total of 68 CDs released for the general public]… Special thanks to Zagyva Natália of the Hungarian Heritage House for her assistance in selecting texts and pictures.” (Grozdits Károly)

Each person interviewed was asked to recommend favorite albums from amongst the 68 CDs of the Új Pátria record series – produced from the results of this collection project

Page 3–6 Agócs Gergely (Ethnomusicologist, musician) managed, directed and participated in the collection work done in Slovakia. He is a native of the region and as an ethnomusicologist is a specialist on traditional music of Slovakia. He reminds us that the project recorded the repertoire of Gypsy village musicians, who had neither telephones, nor email addresses therefore each musician had to be personally sought out in their villages and visited beforehand in order to arrange the details of their trip to Budapest to record – the dates, their pay, room and board, perhaps even passports. After that, the van could pick them up at the appointed time. He was pleased that the collection work included not only the music played by these bands for Hungarian communities in Slovakia, but also for the Slovaks, Ruthenians, Gypsies, Gorals and Germans of the region.

Agócs Gergely’s favorite CDs from the Új Pátria series: Guta – Nagymegyer, Horhát, Abújszina – Magyarbőd

Inset p 4, 5, 6 – Agócs Gergely – on the musicians from the northern-most Hungarian speaking area of Eastern Slovakia: the village of Magyarbőd/ Bidovce and the band of musicians who provided for the traditional music needs of this area: Fiddler Potta Géza and his band from the village of Abaújszina/Seňa – both villages are in the region around the city of Kassa/Kosice in Eastern Slovakia.

Page 7–11 Árendás Péter (folk musician, ethnomusicologist, professor at Hungarian Academy of Music – Folk Music Department, Folk Music Specialist at Hungarian Heritage House) describes the work and processes as a leader and/or active participant in so many aspects of this project. He was also actively responsible for leading the collection work of Transylvania’s Szilágyság region and later for the region referred to as "Partium" (Eastern Hungary, Western Romania) and Hungary proper.

Every week a new band would arrive to the Fonó and the recordings were done in their small studio. "…The music collection work (recordings) went like this: from Monday through Friday – each day we recorded 8 or 9 hours of material. We held breaks every hour, during which we’d do back ups, change cassettes, etc….." Begun in September 1997, the active collection work for the whole project was completed by Christmas of 2001. The main work of this immense collection project was completed with the 2010 release of the second set of 50 recordings (after the 18 CDs that had been released earlier).

Árendás Péter’s favorite CDs from the Új Pátria series: A juhait kereső pásztor, Ádámos-Magyarkirályfalva, Zsárolyán-Szamosangyalos-Csenger

Inset Page 8,9,10 – Árendás Péter tells about a special genre of traditional music in these areas – the story of the shepherd that has lost his flock and variations on this theme. The genre is described as a story with a universal theme told in music, speech and dance that has been documented by ethnographers everywhere from Vas County (in Western Hungary) – all the way to Moldavia. A seperate CD in the series was dedicated to this genre. This was also the subject of Árendás’ PhD thesis.

Page 12–14  Both Miklós – musician, director of Budapest’s Hungarian Heritage House – though not a participant in the collection work of the project itself, he describes inspiration he has gotten from the Utolsó Óra/Final Hour collection project. "…the musical milieu which the Final Hour project documented has by now completely disappeared from its traditional environment. The informants that shared their knowledge in person are no longer alive. The experience of field collection work for a new generation of researchers is hardly available. We are able to show the music, we can play the melodies, but everything that radiated from those people [the musicians, the informants] – their lifestyle, their role in their communities – cannot be reproduced or reclaimed."

"….the revival occurs in the present which creates a symbolic connection to the past. These connections are not natural connections, rather they are born of conscious interpretation and that’s why this interpretation becomes the key to a cultural cohesion and preservation of identity….”

"…The Final Hour Collection project with all its related scientific information and artistic archetypes have given us an unprecedented heritage. Now our task is to not only preserve it, but to give it new meaning…."

Both Miklós’ favorite CDs from the Új Pátria record series: Zerkula János keservesei, Kolozsi Kicsi Aladár, Tarnalelesz

Inset Page 13 Pávai István – Kalotaszeg  - A summary on the location, terrain and history of Transylvania’s Kalotaszeg region, mentioning the traditional rural occupations of animal husbandry-agriculture, the hand crafts practiced there, and relevant market town. The region’s highly developed traditional handcrafts, music and folk dances attracted outside attention already in the late 1800s. Vikár Béla, Bartók Béla, Balabán Imre and Jankó János were the first to collect folk music in the region. Famous dynasties of Gypsy musicians in several villages supplied the music for the traditional life. The traditional dances began to be documented in the period between the two world wars. "The [traditional] music of the Hungarians, Romanians and Gypsies that lived there was in many respects interwinned though the music of each ethnic group had it’s own characteristics." Includes brief mention of the music of the former Jewish minority there.

Page 15–17 Horváth László – Director of Budapest’s Fonó Music Hall – folk, jazz, world music producer. As director of the venue for this large undertaking Horváth László’s role was signifcant as organizer and supporter, the Fonó provided the infrastructure so that the project could function. He was also an important liason between the project and one of its main financial supporters, Lukács József. Horváth states that the CD series is still selling today. For him personally the musicians from Transylvania’s Százcsávás/Ceuaș, the Palatka/Palatca musicians made the greatest impresssion. Horváth László is from Northern Serbia, where he has been happy to see that the tambura music tradition is still growing there and seeing the bands that have formed. As for continueing with collection work like that of the Utolsó Óra/Final Hour project, he says that perhaps there are still places to collect, naming Salamon Soma as a researcher and ethmusicologist of the younger generation who could lead. He also says that it may be worth finding out what kind of spread the Új Pátria recordings have reached – thinking that since everything has gone digital this may be possible.

Horváth László’s favorite CDs from the Új Pátria record series: Versendi Kovács László és zenekara, Ördöngösfüzes, Zerkula János keservesei

Inset page 16–17 Juhász Zoltán – dance house musician, ethnomusicologist, specialist on shepherd’s flute: Traditional music of Transylvania’s Ördöngösfüzes/Fizeşu Gherlii (Kolozs County, Romania). The music and dances of this Mezőség village were very popular in the first decades of the dance house movement. Here we read about some local legends, Juhász Zoltán’s informant in the village – Kislaposi András – and about when, where and what the shepherds played on their wooden flutes. In the meantime we also get some information on the local dances there.

Page 18–22 Kelemen László – Director of the Final Hour collection project, Director of Hungarian Heritage House, Director of Hungarian Heritage House Transylvania, musicologist, musician – Native of  Transylvania: this collection project was his baby. He personally directed the Transylvanian section of the collection work – with the help of other Transylvanians: Tötszegi András, and Pávai István; along with ethnomusicologist colleagues from Hungary: Vavrinecz András, Virágvölgyi Márta, Árendás Péter. Here he tells the story of winning  support for the project and the flow of the work week during the collection work at the Fonó. He feels that the project has not had much influence in Transylvania, though it has had a serious influence in Hungary with some of the music collected during the project finding its way into the repertoire of younger dance house revival bands. "…the world has changed, the village musicians’ knowledge has changed and developed with the influence of mass media…" The Final Hour project influenced the 2001 establishment of the Hungarian Heritage House. 

Kelemen László’s favorite CDs from the Új Pátria series: Laka "Kicsi" Aladár, Máramaros, Gyergyódomuk

Inset page 19,20: Kelemen László – Gyergyódomuk /Dămuc – Almásmező/ Bicazu Ardelean – These two Romanian villages are located in Eastern Transylvania near – but north of the Gyimes Valley. Their music, instrumentation (violin, hit cello – nowadays with addition of accordion and saxophone for larger events) and dances are similar to those in Gyimes – but they all have Romanian names, of course. Included here is the legend of Gyilkos-tó/Lacul Roșu.  

Inset page 21: Staff list for the Final Hour /Utolsó Óra traditional music collection project – this is a list of the names of the people who worked on the project [Venue for the documentation work: Fonó Music Hall – Budapest 1116 – Sztregova utca 3.]

Headings:

Preparation – technical organization

Transylvania: Preparations , program director

Slovakia: Preparations, program director

Hungary, Transcarpathia, Partium (Eastern Hungary-Western Romania), Voivodina

Program directors:

Inset page 21–22: Kelemen László – The two sides of Máramaros – "The historical Máramaros/Maramureș region today lies in two countries with the larger portion in Southwestern Ukraine (Transcarpathia) and a smaller portion in the mostly mountainous Northwestern Romania. The area has been inhabited by Romanians since the 13th century. Bartók collected folk music here (as early as 1913) and identified melodies of a Máramaros ’old’ and ’new style’. Traditional instrumentation: violin accompanied on "zongora" (a guitar) and drum set up with small cymbol.

Page 24–27 Pávai István – is a Hungarian ethnomusicologist from Transylvania (Romania). When he moved to Hungary from Transylvania in 1994 to work with the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography and the Hungarian Institute of Musicology – he already had a couple decades of research in Transylvania and Romania behind him. He was especially active in the Utolsó Óra project during the Transylvanian section of the collection work starting in the fall of 1997 to early the 2000s - when they brought 46 village bands from Transylvania to Budapest to document their music. He says here that the collection work done within this project was particularly useful because the researchers had 5 days with each group of informants – a situation that was difficult to orchestrate in the field. The fact that he speaks Romanian was important as many of the musicians they brought to the Fonó to document didn’t speak Hungarian. After the active collection work was finished Pávai worked on making a database of the collected music. He states here that the newest version of that data base contains the complete collection from the Utolsó Óra Project and is now available on the internet in both Hungarian and English – at: utolsoora.hu. He states that in the Folk Music Department at the Liszt Academy of Music the material collected by this project is utilized and referred to by both the instructors and students.

Pávai István’s favorite CDs from the Új Pátria series: Balázstelke, Héderfája-Gógánváralja, Görgényoroszfalu

Inset page 26, 27: Pávai István introduces us to the traditional music in Transylvania’s Vízmellék region located in Southern Transylvania around the towns of Nagyenyed/Aiud and Gyulafehérvár/Alba Iulia.

Page 28–30 Rockenbauer Zoltán – When Kelemen László first contacted Rockenbauer Zoltán in his search for funding for the Utolsó Óra/Final Hour traditional music collection project, Rockenbauer was working in the office of the Hungarian Prime Minister – soon after he was appointed Minister of Culture. Rockenbauer, a politician who has a diploma in ethnography and is also a music lover, became a supporter and advocate for these projects. He helped secure funding for the Utolsó Óra project, the resulting Új Pátria series of CDs, and was instrumental in securing support for establishment of Hungarian Heritage House in 2001. He says here: "…not only is preserving tradition important, but also the study of changes in tradition – and then the process and documentation of its disappearance."

Rockenbauer Zoltán’s favorite CDs in the series: Ördöngösfüzes, Báré-Magyarpalatka, Gyimes

Inset page 29–30: Magyar  Zoltán – Mezőség – Ethnographer, historian, literary historian Magyar Zoltán provides us with information on the type of terrain and history of Transylvania’s Mezőség/Câmpia Transilvaniei region. Bartók and Kodály did not do any collection work in this area. It wasn’t until the second half of the 20^th century that research began in this ethnographically rich but remote region. The well-known town of Szék/Sic is in this region, and Szék along with other Mezőség villages, had until the 1990s preserved rites from the Middle Ages. Spontaneous movement of peoples in the 18^th century led to a Romanian majority there. By the beginning of the 21st century only a fifth of the 300 Mezőség villages had more than 100 Hungarians.  “Thanks to those who started the dance house movement and began to institutionalize preservation of tradition - for ethnographers and researchers the region has become one of the most well-known areas for folklore and in a few of the Mezőség villages this has actually had a retroactive influence on the culture of the original villages.”