Folk, classical or...? Liszt, definitely!

The topic of folk music in our country brought a few thoughts to my mind, or perhaps it would be better to say a few melodies. 🎶

When I saw that Avdesing had created this challenge in the YouHive community a few days ago, I liked the idea, although I knew that it wouldn't be easy to write a post. Let alone start it, because uh... well, the matter is a bit complicated. Let's just start with countries, because which country should I think of? The one I live in right now, or the one I was born in, or maybe I should remove the term "country" from this context and write about the music of the nation I belong to, even though I didn't live in the geographical territory defined by borders nowadays. Still, to the greatest extent, I share a collective identity with that nation whose melodies you will hear in today's post. That collective identity is based on our common linguistic and cultural/musical characteristics, too.

Well, that was the first and also the least of the problems, because the real challenge comes when I have to do deeper research of my roots, to tell you correctly and with certainty where we come from, what language we speak and where our music comes from... Since I dedicated the afternoon yesterday to that, and I only got even more confused by all the information because even the researchers themselves cannot fully determine some things, whether we indeed came as tribes from the distant Eurasian steppes in the ninth century to the Carpathian Basin, not to mention the root of the Hungarian language and the disagreements between researchers about which group the Hungarian language belongs to, I decided to spare you the trouble! So, I correct myself: you will not hear original Hungarian folk music in my post, I'm sorry. 😂

Hey, that doesn't mean my post ends here! I promised Avdesing my contribution, so it is coming from the angle I handle a bit better than the rest. More precisely, it is coming from the angle of classical music, still kind of covering the topic of folk, traditional music! _{I hope the admins of this community will not kick me off 😆}

If you go back to the first photo in this post, you will see a huge building... (I hope it can be seen well; it was evening when I took these photos in Budapest this April, so I am sorry if they are a bit blurred...) with a statue sitting in the middle of its facade. That man was none other than the great and highly respected figure in the circle of musicians, and especially us pianists...

...his name is...

Liszt Ferenc!!

_{In English Franz Liszt. But I like to call him by his Hungarian name, Ferenc.}

Do you see his hand? Well, I don't know if it is a real-size representation of him, but according to the size of the chords in his compositions (that he also played with ease, but we all suffer while playing them haha), maybe I would dare to say it is! 😆

Here I am trying to get as close as possible to Mister Liszt!

So, what is his connection to this topic of folk music, you could ask! The answer lies in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, those pieces written for piano by him, influenced by Hungarian folk themes. They stand out for their technical and musical difficulty, but nothing written by this composer is "easy".

I am sure you have heard this piece... Let's see, I mean, let's hear:

video source - YouTube

This is the second Hungarian Rhapsody, the most famous one from the set of 19 rhapsodies. It has two major parts as it follows the traditional form of folk dance, Csárdás: a slow part at the beginning and then a quick, dance-type section.

So, you can hear at first the slow, melodic part with a melancholic and even dramatic character. At this point, all pianists would imagine themselves playing this Hungarian Rhapsody, as something that could be learned... But then comes the second part... Oh boy, all dreams of playing it vanish after just a few bars! 😂 Because Liszt was a virtuoso pianist, he also infused transcendental technique into his compositions. He was innovative and a turning point for pianism on a global scale, just as Paganini was for the violin. He could play with these tunes influenced by folk music and bring these extremely difficult pieces! I hope you listen until the end of the piece... which is completely crazy!!

video source - YouTube

Even if you are not a fan of classical music, maybe you have heard parts of this piece in a cartoon. It is a funny version... Does it sound more familiar now? I am bringing here a video where you can simultaneously see the cartoon and how the music that is heard there, "played by Tom and Jerry", is actually played really. The Cat Concerto (Hungarian Rhapsody) starts at the 55th second.

Thanks to this great composer and his 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies, the world could hear about this nation and its music. Well, also thanks to Tom and Jerry, it became even more popular... and also thanks to Avdesing and her proposed topic, this Hungarian Rhapsody could be honoured, at least a little. 😇

There is still a lot that could be said about Hungarian folk music. Johannes Brahms also made his contribution with his Hungarian Dances, but most of the work was done by two Hungarian composers, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, who literally went out to the countryside and listened to the people singing and playing traditional music, so they recorded and transcribed more than 10,000 folk songs! But I guess we would never finish this post if we started writing about that many songs.

_{What a good excuse to talk just about Liszt and his Second Hungarian Rhapsody...😆}

Ok, I hope @avdesing doesn't ban me from here! 😁