Song, Music, and Dance

Historically, the court, towns, churches, and villages represented distinct spheres of musical culture, but the balance in the respective significance of these spheres began to alter. Girolamo Diruta's book of piano exercises, Il Transilvano, indicates a continuing link with Italy. Musical needs and tastes were changing at virtually all levels of society. Towards the end of the 17th century, the performance of music in the home became fashionable in aristocratic circles, as did musical education for children. According to the 1696 inventory of {2-500.} Szentbenedek Castle, there stood in a room called the 'longer palace' a 'tiny organ' that had been 'purchased recently by the master himself, Zsigmond Kornis'.[178]178. M. B. Nagy, Várak, kastélyok, p. 269.

The Protestant Churches forbade their faithful to sing love songs, dance, or play the violin. Puritans and Pietists condemned instrumental music and, like the Calvinists, excluded it from their services and educational institutions. However, at the end of the 1600s, Nagyenyed College was among the first to introduce the organ for the teaching of religious choral music.

The growing demand for more emotional forms of religious worship gave a strong stimulus to the development of Hungarian vocal music. The communal experience of singing in church had a broad social impact. There were no musical barriers between denominations. Protestant and Catholics freely exchanged psalms and hymns, using the same tunes to convey new messages of faith and worship. Misztótfalusi reported that when 'entering a church [in Holland], one can appreciate the situation at a glance. No one goes there without a book, and no one remains silent during the singing; young and old, all raise their voices. If only this was the case in our country as well'.[179]179. Miklós Misztótfalusi Kis, preface to A Zsoltárok (1686).

Realizing that vocal music had to be cultivated and turned into an art, Misztótfalusi made efforts to develop the singing of psalms. Early on, while teaching at Fogaras, he had deplored the habit of cantors, students, and other believers to sing by ear and mix up tunes; often, the cantors themselves misled the congregations by singing something other than the 'authentic songs'. He was convinced that musical proficiency was one of the keys to social development, and, being a printer, hoped to popularize the rule that singing should follow the printed sheet music. In the event, he never realized this modest ambition.

Daniel Speer, the Hungarian Simplicissimus, had received his musical education in Upper-Hungary and became a notable figure in the world of baroque music. On visits to the principality, he had {2-501.} familiarized himself with Transylvanian songs, and he adapted a number of melodies from east-central Europe in his composition Musicalisch-Türkischer Eulen-Spiegel (1688). Less is known about the compositions of a Lutheran pastor from Brassó, Dániel Croner.

Religious music, choral and instrumental, predominated at Apafi's court. The more secular musical culture prevailing at Rákóczi's court did not have much of an impact on Transylvania. There were fifes and drums in the princely army. That Transylvanian Kuruc soldiers stuck to traditional local songs is indicated by the verses of Erdélyi hajdútánc (Transylvanian Hajdú Dance), the song of a soldier coming home on leave. This may have been similar to the soldiers' dance that aristocratic youths, bearing 'wooden swords', performed at a party thrown by the governor at Szeben on the last night of the carnival in 1705.

Dance must have played an important part in Transylvanian society. János Kemény felt it necessary to note that Gabriel Bethlen was 'fascinated by dancing' and paid particular attention to the spectacular Moldavian dances. At Szeben, Wesselényi recorded much about the cultural openness of dancing in Transylvania. When, in autumn 1708, the daughter of Lajos Naláczi was wed, the two-day long festivities saw guests performing the 'Polish variant', the 'fur-cap dance', the 'shoulder dance', the 'candle dance', and 'many French dances'. Dominique Révérand, France's agent in the principality, shows great interest in Transylvanian dances in his historico-romantic chronicle Bethlen Miklós gróf emlékiratai (The Memoirs of Count Miklós Bethlen).

István Wesselényi's journal offers vivid glimpses into the musical life of the towns, and of the aristocracy and nobility. For eight years, Hungarian aristocrats and German officers of the imperial army lived in close proximity in Nagyszeben, and they were entertained at their joint parties by Saxon musicians from town as well as by imperial military bands. Wesselényi himself learned to play the fife during his captivity. In Zsigmond Kornis's home, 'the {2-502.} women sang along to the tunes' played by Hungarian musicians. Saxon and Gypsy musicians were hired to play at weddings. The wife of an imperial general named Kirchbaum learned some Hungarian and acquired a taste for 'Hungarian love songs'. Wesselényi criticized the governor's son for preferring 'licentious songs' and for changing the words to turn religious hymns into 'lewd songs'.[180]180. Wesselényi, Sanyarú világ II, pp. 627, 646-47, 651-53.

Most of the period's political and light verse was written to be set to music. The link between poetry and song was still strong, and there was no clear melodic distinction between secular and religious music. The welding of rhythm, tune, and verse allowed for the free expression of novel feelings and pleasures.