there is a transylvanian legend telling how a mother once pronounced on her son a curse, the effect of which should continue until he succeeded in giving a voice to a dry piece of wood.
the son left his mother, and went sorrowing into the pine forest, where he cut down a tree, and made a fiddle on which he played; and his mother, hearing the sound, came running by and took the curse from off his head.
this story must surely have been written of a gypsy boy, for of none other could it have been equally appropriate; and if to the gypsy woman is given a certain power over the minds of her fellow-creatures, the male tzigane—at least in hungary—is not without his sceptre, and this sceptre is the bow with which he plies his fiddle.
hungarian music and the tzigane player are indispensable conditions of each other’s existence. hungarian music can only be rightly interpreted by the tzigane musician, who for his part can play none other so well as the hungarian music, into whose execution he throws all his heart and his soul, all his latent passion and unconscious poetry—the melancholy and dissatisfied yearnings of an outcast, the deep despondency of an exile who has never known a home, and the wild freedom of a savage who never owned a master.
did the tziganes bring their music ready-made into hungary, or did they find it there and merely adopt it? is a question which has occasioned much learned controversy. liszt inclines to the former opinion, which would mean that no hungarian music existed previous to the tziganes’ arrival in the country in the fifteenth century. that this music is essentially of an asiatic character is, however, no positive proof in favor of this theory, for are not the hungarians themselves an out-wandered asiatic race? and what more natural than the supposition that one asiatic race should be the best interpreter of the music of a kindred people? more likely, however, this music is an unconscious joint production of the two, the tzigane being the artist who has sounded the depths of the hungarian nature and given expression to it.
i remember once asking a distinguished polish lady—princess c——, herself a notable musician and pupil of the great chopin—whether she ever played hungarian music. “no,” she answered, “i cannot play it; there is something in that music which i have not got—something wanting in me.”
what was here wanting i came to understand later, when i became familiar with hungarian music as rendered by the tzigane players. it was the training of several generations of gypsy life which was here wanting—a training which alone teaches the secret of deciphering those wild strains which seem borrowed from the voice of the tempest, or stolen from whispering reeds. in order to have played hungarian music aright she would have required to have slept on mountain-tops during a score of years, to have been bathed over and{267} over again in falling dews, to have shared the food of eagles and squirrels, and have been on equally intimate terms with stags and snakes—conditions which, unfortunately, lie quite out of the reach of delicate polish ladies!
music was the only art within the tzigane’s reach, for despite his vividness of imagination and the continual state of inspiration in which he may be said to live, he could never have been a poet, painter, or sculptor to any eminent degree, because of the fitfulness of his nature, and of his incapacity to clothe his inspirations in a precise image, or reduce them to a given form. every man has the impulse to manifest his feelings in some way or other, and music was the only way open to the tzigane, as being the one solitary art which, à la rigueur, can dispense with a scientific training and be taught by instinct alone.
devoid of printed notes the tzigane is not forced to divide his attention between a sheet of paper and his instrument, and there is consequently nothing to detract from the utter abandonment with which he absorbs himself in his playing. he seems to be sunk in an inner world of his own; the instrument sobs and moans in his hands, and is pressed tight against his heart as though it had grown and taken root there. this is the true moment of inspiration, to which he rarely gives way, and then only in the privacy of an intimate circle, never before a numerous and unsympathetic audience. himself spellbound by the power of the tones he evokes, his head gradually sinking lower and lower over the instrument, the body bent forward in an attitude of rapt attention, and his ear seeming to hearken to far-off ghostly strains audible to himself alone, the untaught tzigane achieves a perfection of expression unattainable by mere professional training.
this power of identification with his music is the real secret of the tzigane’s influence over his audience. inspired and carried away by his own strains, he must perforce carry his hearers with him as well; and the hungarian listener throws himself heart and soul into this species of musical intoxication, which to him is the greatest delight on earth. there is a proverb which says, “the hungarian only requires a gypsy fiddler and a glass of water in order to make him quite drunk;” and indeed intoxication is the only word fittingly to describe the state of exaltation into which i have seen a hungarian audience thrown by a gypsy band.
sometimes, under the combined influence of music and wine, the{268} tziganes become like creatures possessed; the wild cries and stamps of an equally excited audience only stimulate them to greater exertions. the whole atmosphere seems tossed by billows of passionate harmony; we seem to catch sight of the electric sparks of inspiration flying through the air. it is then that the tzigane player gives forth everything that is secretly lurking within him—fierce anger, childish wailings, presumptuous exaltation, brooding melancholy, and passionate despair; and at such moments, as a hungarian writer has said, one could readily believe in his power of drawing down the angels from heaven into hell!
listen how another hungarian has here described the effect of their music:
“how it rushes through the veins like electric fire! how it penetrates straight to the soul! in soft, plaintive minor tones the adagio opens with a slow, rhythmical movement: it is a sighing and longing of unsatisfied aspirations; a craving for undiscovered happiness; the lover’s yearning for the object of his affection; the expression of mourning for lost joys, for happy days gone forever: then abruptly changing to a major key the tones get faster and more agitated; and from the whirlpool of harmony the melody gradually detaches itself, alternately drowned in the foam of over-breaking waves, to reappear floating on the surface with undulating motion—collecting as it were fresh power for a renewed burst of fury. but quickly as the storm came it is gone again, and the music relapses into the melancholy yearnings of heretofore.”
these two extremes of fiercest passion and plaintive wailing characterize the nature of the hungarian, of whom it is said that, “weeping, the hungarian makes merry.”
under the influence of tzigane music a hungarian is capable of flinging about his money with the most reckless extravagance—fifty, a hundred, a thousand florins and more being often given for the performance of a single melody. sometimes a gentleman will stick a large bank-note behind his ear, while the tzigane proceeds to play his favorite tune, drawing nearer and nearer till he is almost touching; pouring the melody straight into the upturned ear of the enraptured auditor; dropping out the notes as though the music were some exquisitely flavored liquid flattering the palate of this superrefined gourmet, who, with half-closed eyes expressive of perfect beatitude, entirely abandons himself to the delirious ecstasy.
not only do the people at rustic gatherings dance to the strains of these brown bohemians, but in no real hungarian ball-room would other music be tolerated, and the austrian military bands, so much prized elsewhere, are here at a discount and little appreciated.
gypsy musicians.
of course the gypsy bands in large towns are not composed of the ragged, unkempt individuals who haunt the village pothouses or the lonely csardas[65] on the puszta. their constant intercourse with higher circles has given them a certain degree of polish, and they mostly appear in hungarian costume; but intrinsically they are ever the same as their more vagabond brethren, and their eye never loses the semi-savage glitter reminding one of a half-tamed animal.
the calling of musician has often become hereditary in certain families, who thus feel themselves to be interwoven with the fates of the nobility for whom they play; and vice versa, for the youth of both sexes in hungary the recollection of every pleasure they have enjoyed, the dawn of first love, and every alternation of hope, triumph, jealousy, or despair, is inextricably interwoven with the image of the tzigane player. as mr. patterson says, “the tzigane is a sort of retainer of the magyar, who cannot well live without him—the insolent good-nature of the one just fitting in with the simple-hearted servility of the other; hence the tzigane is most commonly found in those parts of the country where hungarians and roumanians are in the majority. he does not find the neighborhood of the hard-working, money-loving suabians profitable to him.” those who are successful musicians gain a sort of abnormal social status far above their fellows. the proverb, “no entertainment without the gypsies,” is acted upon by peasant and prince alike. those nobles who have squandered their fortunes would, if they took the trouble to analyze the causes of their ruin, find the tzigane player to form one of the heaviest items. as to the peasant there is a popular rhyme which says that if the tzigane plays badly he gets his head broken with his own fiddle; but should he succeed in touching the feelings of the excitable peasant, the latter will give him the shirt off his own back.
english people are apt to misunderstand the position of these tzigane musicians, which is in every way a peculiar one—the intimacy with the upper classes thus brought about by their calling implying, however, no sort of equality. the tzigane remains the gypsy fiddler, while the magyar never forgets that he is a nobleman; and the barrier between the two classes is as absolute as that between jew and gentleman in poland. although it is no uncommon sight in the streets of any hungarian town, towards the small hours of the morning, to see distinguished members of the jeunesse dorée (their spirits, no doubt, slightly raised by wine) going home affectionately linked arm-in arm with these brown fiddlers, yet no hungarian could fall into the amusing mistake of an english nobleman, who, making a point of lionizing all celebrities within reach, invited to dinner the first violin of a gypsy band starring in london some years ago. the flattering invitation occasioned the most intense surprise to the distinguished artist himself, who, though well used to many forms of enthusiasm called forth by his genius, was certainly not accustomed to be seriously{271} taken in the sense of a civilized human being. it is said, however, that the gypsy’s quickness of perception, doing duty for education on this occasion, enabled him to pass through the formidable ordeal of a london dinner-party without further breaches of our rigid etiquette than are quite permissible on the part of a barbarous grandee.
it is said that the tziganes often perform the office of postillon d’amour in taking letters backward and forward between young people who have no other means of communication, their peculiar code of honor forbidding them to take any pecuniary remuneration in return. thus many of them are able to show dainty pieces of handiwork and presents of valuable jewelled studs or amber mouth-pieces, received from their high-born patrons in token of gratitude for delicate services rendered.
the words “tzigane” and “musician” have become almost synonymous in hungary, and to say “i shall call in the tziganes” is equivalent to saying “i shall send for the musicians.”
when the dancers are limp and indolent the tzigane musician loses interest as well, and plays carelessly and without spirit; but when he sees dancing con amore, and more especially if his playing be praised, then he knows neither hunger nor fatigue. he executes every sort of dance music with spirit, and his power of identifying himself with the dancers renders the gypsy’s playing far superior to that of other professional musicians; but his real triumph is the csardas.
the band-master is fond of secretly selecting a couple from among the dancers, and at these directing his music—aiming it at them, if one may thus express it—following their every movement, and identifying himself with their every gesture. to watch a pair of lovers dancing is the gypsy player’s greatest delight, and for them he exerts himself to the utmost, throwing his whole soul into the music, breathing the softest sighs and the most passionate rhapsodies of which his instrument is capable.
the tzigane band-master—or, rather, the first violin, for the gypsies require no one to beat time for them—when playing in the ball-room, is wont to change the melody as fancy prompts, merely giving warning to his colleagues by two sharp raps of the bow that a change is impending. the other musicians do not know beforehand what tune is coming, but a note or two suffices to put them on the scent, and they fall in so smoothly that the transition is scarcely detected.
almost every one of the dancers has his or her favorite air—their nota, as it is here called—and it is meant as a delicate attention when the tzigane band-master, smiling or winking at a passing dancer, strikes into his air of predilection. the gypsy’s memory in thus retaining (and never confounding) the favorite airs of each separate person in a large society is marvellous; and not only this, but he will likewise remember to a nicety which air was your favorite one three or four years ago, and all the attendant circumstances to which the former melody played accompaniment.
thus, whirling past in the mazes of your favorite valse, with the girl you adore on your arm, you may catch the dark eye of the tzigane player fixed expressively upon you, and in the next moment the music has changed; it is a long-forgotten melody they are playing now—a melody once familiar to your ears at a by-gone time, when you had other thoughts, other hopes, another partner on your arm; when wood-violet, not patchouly, was perchance the scent you loved best, and fair ringlets had more charm than raven tresses.
for a moment the present scene has faded from your eyes, and in its place you see a vanished face and hear a voice grown strange to your ears. that valse, once to you the most entrancing music on earth, now sounds like the gibings of some tormenting spirit, and you breathe an involuntary sigh for a time that is no more!
thus the tzigane player, unlike the hired musicians in other countries, has an intimate and artistic connection with his dancers. in england or germany the musician is simply the machine which plays, no more to be regarded than a barrel-organ or a musical-box; in hungary alone he is something more, his power of directing being here not limited to the feet, but may almost be said to extend to the fancies and feelings of his audience—feelings which it is his delight to share and sway, with actual power to stimulate love or jealousy, and reawaken grief and remorse, at the touch of his magic wand.