Folk music research in Hungary, 1964 (Budapest, 1964)
Laments
IN PREPARATION COLLECTION OF HUNGARIAN FOLK MUSIC CORPUS MUSICAE POPULARIS HUNGARICAE Editors in chief BÉLA BARTÓK and ZOLTÁN KODÁLY V LAMENTS edited by LAJOS KISS and BENJÁMIN RAJECZKY The laments with their most ancient tunes claim a special treatment among the other functional branches of Hungarian folk music; their melodies and words have preserved an archaic atmosphere and are easy to mark off from the rest of the material in the previous volumes of the Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae: they furnish the only existing examples of recitative prose sung to improvised tunes. Since this is the first enterprise aimed at publishing the entire store of a nation’s collected laments, the Editors have every reason to believe that both Hungarian and foreign historians of music will appreciate the volume for the extraorainary value and genuine nature of its contents. The basic material of this book consists of Zoltán Kodály’s classical collection recorded in 1914 and 1915. Field and scientific research has been carried on since, so the Reader will get acquainted with the results of half a century’s systematic investigations, collections and methodological studies of the great pioneer and his followers in Hungarian musicology. Following Kodály’s Preface a comprehensive study is given to expound the musicological results achieved so far by the analysis of laments. An analysis of the tune types methodically arranged in tables is appended to the study. Of a total of 350 lament tunes (about 6 000 note lines) 200 are grouped according to regions, while the rest, worthy of publication mainly for the words, are given in the explanatory notes. The Appendix presents a set of melodies with strophic structure which, though displaying hardly any apparent correspondence with the bulk of the Hungarian lament tunes, are still considered, for all their disparity, as closely attached to them by tradition, practice and words. The previous volumes of the Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae have been provided only with a few summaries in foreign langauges, whereas in consideration of the international research, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has decided to publish this volume in Hungarian and English language. AKADÉMIAI KIADÓ BUDAPEST