Submitted Papers - 2017

Bartók's Lost Interpretive Style and Its Continuity Through Irén Marik

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
An examination of field recordings made on cylinders by Bartók and how the songs and instrumental works became parts of his own compositions.
As few other than Bartók could play them with such a background, it came as a surprise to discover Irén Marik, a pupil of the composer's, who approaches Bartók's own pianism closer than anyone else. We will hear how both capture a musical language whose style could only have been transmitted as an oral tradition, displaying how music notation is secondary to the concept of sound and how it represents its origins.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Allan Evans began guitar lessons as the last pupil of Rev. Gary Davis and continued to study composition and ethnomusicology at the Mannes College of Music and graduate studies at the Aaron Copland School of Music (CUNY). Interest in the lost musical traditions of the 20th century led Evans to develop Sound Archaeology, a practice that retrieves, researches, restores, and publishes CDs and books through Arbiter of Cultural Traditions, a non-profit arts organization he founded in 1995. Author of several music biographies and an Italian cookbook, Evans is on the faculty of the College of the Performing Arts at the New School University and is co-founder/director of the Scuola Italiana de Greenwich Village.

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Bartók and Kodály's Transylvania, as Reflected in their Piano Works

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Bartók and Kodály’s oeuvre and their wide production of works using folk music had not only made transriptions of Folk music grow in scope and gain international exposure, but also became the most powerful tool in the formation of 20th century Hungarian national identity.
19th century music reform, identified as Hungarian: the verbunkos style, the csardas dance-style, later called „fabricated” by Kodály; 20th century: back to folk music roots, the authentic Hungarian and more widely: Carpathian basin peasant music tradition. Bartók and Kodály’s folklorism: the reinforcement of national feelings.
Transylvania: the Eastern part of Hungary, Western part of Romania, the common land of two nations: the fairy land, where they could still find the ancient folk song types and scales. As collectors, they divided their work as follows: Kodály researched Hungarian folk music in Hungary and neighbouring countries (Romania, Slovakia), seeking the origin of Hungarians and their music; while Bartók was a pioneer collector of not only Hungarian, but other nation’s folk music as well. Bartók never spoke about his „nation’s” folk music, but always about his „homeland’s peasant music. His ideal was to establish a larger-scale, Carpathian-basin musical dialect.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A concert pianist, Dr. Judit Gábos is head of the music department of Eszterházy University of Eger. In 2003 received DMA in piano performance from the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and in 2012 obtained a habilitation also in piano performance from the Liszt Academy. Between 2000-2006 – as the artist of the Hungarian Radio – played numerous live solo and chamber music recitals; has been performing regularly at the Liszt Museum in Budapest, played at the Spring Festival of Budapest, Pecs and Eger. In Europe gave solo and chamber music concerts in Belgium, Finland, Serbia, Spain. In Romania has been frequently soloist of the State Philharmonics of Targu-Mures. In the United States played Bartók (Concerto no.3 for piano and orchestra, the Sonata for two pianos and percussions) and also all-Bartók recitals in New York (2013, 2015), Canada (Ottawa, Toronto). In 2011, as a Fulbright grantee, played concerts and recitals in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco), Cleveland (Ohio), Atlanta (Georgia), in South and North Carolina, honouring the Liszt bicentenary. Outside Europe and the North American continent, toured Indonesia, Brazil, India.

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The Opera Erkel Should Have Written: Decolonizing Bánk bán

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Composed in 1861 by Ferenc Erkel, Bánk bán is widely considered the greatest example of nineteenth-century Hungarian national opera. In this syncretic work, Erkel amalgamated Western operatic topoi with indelible national musical elements. Based on the once-banned play by Jozsef Katona, Bánk bán had powerful political implications with its heavy allegorical representation of Hapsburg domination. The fact that Hungary’s position had shifted from colonial subject to duel monarchy in the mid nineteenth century made performance of such politicized content possible. In the early twentieth century, however, its standing as the opera of the people was challenged in the wake of the polemics surrounding Hungarian music in general and Erkel’s music in particular. Ideas of national identity were strengthened and rearticulated during the brief period of interwar independence, and Bánk bán became mired in a position of being an established Hungarian national symbol that was not considered Hungarian enough. In response, dramaturge Kálmán Nádasdy and composer Nándor Rékai drastically revised the work in 1940. Their version usurped the place of the original in the repertoire. With a goal of making Bánk bán the ultimate expression of Magyarság (Hungarianess), they brought opera’s libretto closer to the original play. The revision also undermined the putatively colonial “intrusions” of Western operatic norms, as well as anything antithetical to Magyarság. Bánk bán emerges as an example of what scholar Christopher Balme has identified as the triadic progression from imperialism to colonization and ultimately to decolonization, highlighting what was a troublesome search for an autochthonous artistic voice.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Musicologist Zachary Milliman was first trained as an opera singer, attaining a Bachelors of Music and a Master of Music from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah respectively. His research has been featured in several conferences, including one he created called Opera Periphereia, and has been published in the Journal of IAWM. From 2013-2015, Zachary taught at the Univeristy of Alaska, Anchorage, and in 2015 he co-founded the non-profit firm The Composer Discovery Initiative. That same year he was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the Hungarian Musicological Institute in Budapest. Zachary is currently working toward a PhD in historical musicology at McGill University.

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Dancer or Musician: Contrasting Relationships to Improvisation, Rural and Urban

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The process of transferring Hungarian music and dance from a rural setting to a new social context, that of the urban táncház or dance party (from 1972 to the present), has resulted in a new code of improvisation, different from that of the village people it is meant to closely emulate. In addition, while both táncház dancers and musicians hone close to their rural models, the differing social roles and responsibilities of dancers and musicians in the village suggest to táncház participants improvisational approaches that are similar, but freer in contrasting ways from their models.
Táncház dancers have imposed on themselves the directive to learn the improvisational rules of their village models and follow them, but also to not do anything they have not seen a village person do, whether live or on film, in the belief that only a person raised in a culture can authentically create new dance figures. Musical improvisation, while coming from the same impulse, stems from a difference in focus and source—musicians tend to be Roma/Gypsy, in the position of providing service music. They must structure the dance, play at the proper tempo with the right intensity, and give appropriate musical cues, but beyond this, both rural and táncház musicians tend to have more freedom in what they play.
This discussion will use recorded examples to illustrate, discuss, and contrast improvisational techniques for dancers and musicians, both in the village and in a táncház context.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith E. Olson (M.Phil, NYU, M.M. University of Colorado) is an historical musicologist working in the area of traditional Hungarian music and dance in Romania, Hungary, and among Hungarians in the United States and Canada. She combines research in traditional settings, in Hungarian dance camps, and within revival groups with analysis and discussion of dance structure, process, and improvisation. She presents frequently at venues such as the International Council for Traditional Music, the International Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and AHEA. She performs this research and organizes táncház (dance parties) in New York City under the auspices of the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum. A secondary research area is 19th century German music and musical culture.

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