The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia. Old
parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and
war-chants at the time of the "home-making," and church and folk-songs
from their earliest Christian period. Peasant and nobleman are musical
alike--it runs in the race. The gipsies that have settled among them
caught up the love of music and are now the best interpreters of the
Hungarian songs. The people have got so used to their "blackies," as
they call them, that no lesser or greater fête day can pass without
the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the
people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola, clarinet,
tárogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal. The
tárogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four
legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the
player performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends
with cotton-wool. The sound is wild and weird, but if well played very
beautiful indeed. The gipsies seldom compose music. The songs come into
life mostly on the spur of the moment. In the olden days war-songs and
long ballads were the most usual form of music. The seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were specially rich in the production of songs that
live even now. At that time the greatest gipsy musician was a woman: her
name was "Czinka Panna," and she was called the Gipsy Queen. With the
change of times the songs are altered too, and now they are mostly
lyric. Csárdás is the quick form of music, and tho' of different
melodies it must always be kept to the same rhythm. This is not much
sung to, but is the music for the national dance. The peasants play on
a little wooden flute which is called the "Tilinko," or "Furulya," and
they know hundreds of sad folk-songs and lively Csárdás. While living
their isolated lives in the great plains they compose many a beautiful
song.