Early Hungarian Dances from the 17th Century

Ferenc Farkas was born in 1905 into a musical family; his mother played the piano, and his father played the cimbalom, a Roma dulcimer. After studying in Budapest and Rome in the 1920s, he eventually moved to Vienna and Copenhagen, where he wrote music for Scandinavian films. He eventually returned to Hungary and, from 1949 to 1975, was a professor of composition at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. He earned a reputation as one of the leading Hungarian composers and teachers of his generation, including György Ligeti among his many famous students.

Although Farkas occasionally veered into 20th-century atonality, his music is mainly melodic and folk-infused. His Early Hungarian Dances from the 17th Century are an excellent illustration of Hungarian music’s impact on Farkas’ own compositions. As Farkas described the work,

In Hungarian music, folk songs are obviously of great importance, but our ancient airs and dances play a more modest role. For this work, I was influenced by 17th-century dances, written by unknown amateurs in a relatively simple style. Most of these dances were written between the 14th and 18th centuries in the usual form of tablature notation. My interest in this music was first captured in the 1940s. I was so fascinated that I decided to give these melodies new life. I assembled small eight-bar dances into trios, which I put together in the form of rondos, and, using the harmony and counterpoint of the Old Baroque, I tried to recreate the atmosphere of a “provincial” Hungarian Baroque style.