THE TZIGANE MUSICIAN.
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 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
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.
[Illustration: 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 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] The solitary inns standing on the wide _pusztas_ are called
_csardas_, and have given their name to the national dance.