Katalin Károlyi & Klára Würtz - Hungarian Songs: Bartók, Kodály & Ligeti (2023) [Official Digital Download]

Only one year and a half after their first meeting in Budapest in early 1905, Bartók and Kodály were eager to jointly publish their first settings of Hungarian folk songs. In their foreword to the volume Magyar népdalok (Hungarian Folk Songs), they declare their goal thus: “…to get the general public to know and appreciate folk songs.”

The Ten Hungarian Folk Songs from 1906 (BB 43), Bartók’s earliest and still quite rudimentary but imaginative and very sensitive folk-song arrangements, were collected by the 25-year-old himself mostly in three regions of the Hungarian countryside: near Budapest, Békéscsaba, and the lake Balaton. This set, from which we can listen to four arrangements on this cd, has never been offered by Bartók to be published. Having collected peasant music from regions of the Hungarian Kingdom where significant Romanian and Slovak minorities lived, Bartók immediately became intrigued by the peculiarities – and from his point of view, musical freshness – of both nations’ songs and instrumental dances. His reverence for the folklore of the Slovaks can be felt in the five arrangements of the Falún (Village Scenes) series (BB 87a), composed in 1924 and based on folk songs from the Zólyom (in Slovakian: Zvolenská) region of what was then Upper Hungary (now Slovakia) he collected in 1917 from village women. These arrangements of bursting energy, enchantingly deep emotionality and transcendence also bear testimony to Bartók’s discovery of Stravinsky’s music which he was galvanised by in the early 1920s. The texts are sung by Katalin Károlyi in Hungarian here, not in their original Slovak-language version.

Before leaving Hungary for Austria and West Germany after the fall of the 1956 revolution, György Ligeti (1923–2006) not only collected folk music in his native Transylvania but also worked for the Institute for Folklore in Bucharest and Kolozsvár in the late 1940s. Thus, in his twenties and thirties, he followed the footsteps of his idols, Bartók and Kodály. In the last months of 1952, Ligeti set to music five poems by János Arany, a leading figure of 19th-century Hungarian poetry. Both text and music are deeply rooted in Hungarian folk songs; indeed, most of Ligeti’s melodies, or parts thereof, could be actual folk songs, just like Arany’s texts from almost a century earlier could be folk-song texts. The last piece is an exception, being a daring musical setting of Arany’s 1868 Hungarian translation of Robert Burns’ humorous song The Deil’s Awa Wi’ Th’ Exciseman (1792).

Tracklist:
01. Ligeti: Három weöres-dal, 3 Songs on Poems by Sándor Weöres: I. Táncol a hold
02. Ligeti: Három weöres-dal, 3 Songs on Poems by Sándor Weöres: II. Gyümölcs-fürt
03. Ligeti: Három weöres-dal, 3 Songs on Poems by Sándor Weöres: III. Kalmár jött nagy madarakkal
04. Ligeti: Öt Arany-dal, 5 Songs on Poems by János Arany: I. Csalfa sugar
05. Ligeti: Öt Arany-dal, 5 Songs on Poems by János Arany: II. A legszebb virág
06. Ligeti: Öt Arany-dal, 5 Songs on Poems by János Arany: III. A csendes dalokból
07. Ligeti: Öt Arany-dal, 5 Songs on Poems by János Arany: IV. A bujdosó
08. Ligeti: Öt Arany-dal, 5 Songs on Poems by János Arany: V. Az ördög elvitte a fináncot
09. Kodály: Magos kősziklának (Magyar népzene K.49, V. No. 1)
10. Kodály: Ifjúság, mint sólyommadár (Magyar népzene K.49, V. No. 3)
11. Kodály: Az hol én elmegyek (Magyar népzene K.49, I. No. 2)
12. Kodály: Csillagom, révészem (Magyar népzene K.49, V. No. 5)
13. Kodály: Magos a rutafa (Magyar népdalok K.22, No. 12)
14. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: I. Fekete főd
15. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: II. Istenem, istenem
16. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: III. Asszonyok, asszonyok
17. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: IV. Annyi bánat az szűvemen
18. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: V. Ha kimegyek
19. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: VI. Töltik a nagy erdő útját
20. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: VII. Eddig való dolgom
21. Bartók: Nyolc magyar népdal BB 47, 8 Hungarian Folk Songs: VIII. Olvad a hó
22. Bartók: Öt magyar népdal BB 97, 5 Hungarian Folk Songs: I. Elindultam szép hazámból
23. Bartók: Öt magyar népdal BB 97, 5 Hungarian Folk Songs: II. Által mennék én a tiszán ladikon
24. Bartók: Öt magyar népdal BB 97, 5 Hungarian Folk Songs: III. A gyulai kert alatt
25. Bartók: Öt magyar népdal BB 97, 5 Hungarian Folk Songs: IV. Nem messze van ide kis Margitta
26. Bartók: Öt magyar népdal BB 97, 5 Hungarian Folk Songs: V. Végigmentem a tárkányi
27. Bartók: Tíz magyar dal BB 43, 10 Hungarian Songs: I. Tiszán innen, Tiszán túl
28. Bartók: Tíz magyar dal BB 43, 10 Hungarian Songs: II. Erdők, völgyek, szűk ligetek
29. Bartók: Tíz magyar dal BB 43, 10 Hungarian Songs: VIII. Sej, mikor engem katonának visznek
30. Bartók: Tíz magyar dal BB 43, 10 Hungarian Songs: X. Kis kece lányom
31. Bartók: Falun BB 87, Village Scenes: I. Szénagyűjtéskor
32. Bartók: Falun BB 87, Village Scenes: II. A menyasszonynál
33. Bartók: Falun BB 87, Village Scenes: III. Lakodalom
34. Bartók: Falun BB 87, Village Scenes: IV. Bölcsődal
35. Bartók: Falun BB 87, Village Scenes: V. Legénytánc


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