CERBELENI LA BUDAPESTA: CONFERINȚA LUI BARTÓK DESPRE DIALECTUL MUZICAL DIN HUNEDOARA
INFORMANTS FROM CERBĂL IN BUDAPEST: BARTÓK’S LECTURE ON THE FOLK MUSIC DIALECT OF HUNEDOARA

Summary/Abstract: “The Folk Music Dialect of the Hunedoara Romanians” is a substantial yet very early article by Bartók (Ethnographia, March 1914), in which he summarizes some of his basic ideas related to Romanian folk music. Being first published barely three months after Bartók’s collecting trip in Hunedoara, it is actually an immediate reflection on the newly discovered material. Around the same time Bartók also presented this subject in the form of a lecture with live musical illustrations provided by the peasant musicians and singers themselves who were invited to Budapest – a unique occasion in Bartók’s whole life. Although the two versions of the text, the lecture and the published article, are largely identical, there are still some essential differences between them. Whereas in the published version Bartók proposed a systematic discussion of the songs proper of the region – the genre he considered most important –, in the lecture the focus was on the impressive performance of instrumental dance music, especially bagpipe music, and ceremonial songs were also discussed in more detail. Bartók’s 1914 lecture, however, has another remarkable feature: it was the very first time that gramophone recordings of Romanian folk music were ever made. The present article proposes a short examination of the circumstances and contents of Bartók’s lecture, and includes a full English translation of it, based on the autograph manuscript.

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