“From Pure Source Only” – Collection of Hungarian Folk Songs Project

Abstract

The collection contains a selection of folk songs from the Hungarian population living in Romania. Of the four volumes planned, three have been published so far. The entire collection is expected to span 18 regions and 3 micro-regions, as well as a strip of hundreds of kilometers from Transylvania and other areas outside Transylvania. These include some more developed areas which abandoned their traditions in the first half of the last century, and some more traditional regions. The first three volumes comprise folk songs from 174 localities, collected by 126 collectors, including Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha, János Jagamas and Zoltán Kallós. The collections took place between 1899 and 2017. The melodies have been selected from the archives of Transylvanian and Hungarian institutions, as well as from audio materials accompanying various publications. In this selection I have tried to add as many songs as possible which belong to the old strata of folk songs. I have tried to include as many pentatonic melodies as possible because these strata predominantly feature this scale. Also, in the last century, the everyday folk-song repertoire shifted toward a fixed-rhythm performance mode. An ancient form, with its speech-like mode of performance is now in the process of being lost. Therefore, the number in the published volumes is smaller than that of the folk songs performed in a tight rhythm.