Introduction

The Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin, together with the nationalities living in peace with them, have during their thousand-year history created boundless intellectual treasures. Boundless in every sense of the word. Immensely great, and boundlessly unified, a unity that artificially drawn state borders cannot divide. It is our never-ending and delightful duty, and also our joyful opportunity to give news of the treasures of our art, to register them, to know them, to rise through them, that we may preserve our mental and spiritual unity, that we may pass them on to the following generations of our nation, and that with them we may ‘enrich humanity’.

This conference, organized as part of the festival programme, shows how some great figures of Hungarian music history were linked to the Carpathian Basin, or more precisely presents a few aspects of this highly complex system of connections, examining the work of Ernő Dohnányi, Bartók Béla, Kodály Zoltán, and László Lajtha. Without this strong connection none of them could have become an international phenomenon; none of them could have created anything of universal value. These four great musicians of the first half of the 20th century are given a special place in the conference: we shall hear about school dramas and folk chants in the Carpathian Basin in the 17th and 18th centuries, and of the effect of the Trianon peace treaty on violin virtuoso Jenő Hubay, a leading figure of Hungarian music life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The six papers on music history are crowned with a genuine musical experience, the two-part closing concert. In the first half pianist József Balog and violinist Ferenc Szecsődi perform works by Popper, Hubay, Dohnányi, and Lajtha; in the second half the Vass Lajos Choir of Hungarian Teachers in Slovakia performs works by composers from Slovakia less well known in Hungary, as well as one work each by Bartók, Kodály, and Aurél Tillai.

Emőke Solymosi Tari
musicologist, ordinary member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts