Hungary

The Surviving Klezmer Music of Hungary (3 of 3)

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• published: 12 Oct 2006
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An electric fiddle version of "Khosid Dance" - from my album "Echoes of the Shtetl", out now, on iTunes: http://bit.ly/if0Rcb This album is now also out on Amazon: http://amzn.to/fNVI43 Also out on CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/michaellevy5 OY GEVALT! I have created the world's FIRST ever "Musical Marmite" in this video...I am increasingly FASCINATED, by the myriad of either "love it" or "loath it" comments to this squeaky little "musical" experiment!?!;o) Never have comments to my any of my videos ever been so TOTALLY polar... This is my 1st (rather nasty "Lo Fi"!) electric fiddle arrangement on Youtube, of an AMAZING tune, "Khosid Dance". This piece demonstrates the fusion of Jewish and Romanian-style Gypsy Music which existed in Hungary, prior to the totally pointless destruction of both these communities and their fabulous lost cultures, during the Holocaust... I attempted to learn it by ear from a fantastic CD called "The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania"(Hanniabal 1973) - http://www.muzsikas.hu/pages/jewish.htm This recording uniquely features the playing of Hungarian Gypsy musicians who played these very melodies with Jewish musicians, and also at Jewish Weddings in Hungary before World War II; thus preserving a precious remnant of the amazing Hungarian Jewish/Gypsy culture which once so wonderfully merged & thrived together. Another fascinating recording I can recommend, is called "Like a Different World", by the late Leon Schwartz - http://www.amazon.com/Live-Different-World-Leon-Schwartz/dp/B000008KH4 In this unique recording, can be heard a Jewish fiddle player who was born in Poland in 1902, and was actually taught to play fiddle by the local Gypsy musicians who lived near his village...a fantastically beautiful fusion of styles! The melodies have familiar Jewish-sounding scales/modes, but show the Gypsy/Romanian influence in the both the forms of the dance music. Above all the musical styles which influenced the traditional Klezmer musicians of Eastern Europe, the Romanian influence seems to be the strongest and most enduring. This fact is reflected in the dance forms found throughout the entire surviving Klezmer music repertoire, eg Horas, Doinas, Bulgars etc. Also, the violin playing heard in these few surviving Hungarian Jewish melodies has a much "fuller" fiddle style/sound, than the much more ornamented, sinuous, almost "vibrato-free" fiddle styles of Jewish Eastern European Klezmer - as can BEST be heard in the recording of the simply stunning Klezmer fiddle playing of Alicia Svigals - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m/103-5192471-3955056?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords;=alicia+fidl+klezmer&x;=10&y;=19). This fascinating cultural exchange of musical ideas is certainly not unique to Jewish Klezmer music - it seems to have happened throughout all of History, whenever two entirely different cultures find themselves living side by side eg, Cajun music - an absolutely amazing fusion, of quaint French Dance Music...and BLUES!?! I apologize in advance, for the "rough edges" in my playing of it - I am entirely self-taught in all the instruments I play...just like most of the Klezmorium of old, I never had the money or the opportunity to take (much needed!!) violin lessons :o( The ONLY advantage my electric fiddle has, in this horrible arrangement of the melody..is that the added reverb helps hide my squeaky, self-taught bowing "technique" & even more dodgy intonation, when I get a bit TOO carried away with the music! ;o) OY VEY! My sqeaky self-taught fiddle playing heard here, could best be described as the PAIN of 3000 years of hardship & oppression...represented in NOISE - maybe this fiddler should have fallen OFF the roof?? ;o) I have experimented here, with open D tuning on the fiddle for a more resonant sound (ADAE). If music can "Capture the Soul" of a People, then may this tiny, insignificant piece of Cyberspace be my tribute to the Jewish & Gypsy musicians of Eastern Europe who were so brutally & pointlessly butchered by the Nazis during the Holocaust - at least THIS little melody which some of them once played, will now, forever, live on... For all details, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/klezmerfiddle/home