Introduction

Táncházmozgalom (lit. ‘dance-house movement’), the Hungarian folklorist revival movement, celebrated the 50th anniversary of its launch in 2022. Without a doubt, the movement is unique in many respects. It was established on a firm foundation: an immense stock of collected music and dance in addition to extensive methods of folk music research pioneered by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, then elaborated further by subsequent generations of Hungarian ethnomusicologists. Presumably due to its scholarly antecedents, the initial impetus of the movement was based on aesthetic aspects rather than ethno-nationalist agendas, which are a common ambush for popular movements organized around vernacular cultural phenomena (Martin 2020a:211). Therefore, while the movement gathers people of different views and drifts close to certain political ideologies from time to time, at the end of the day, its principled core can maintain distance from politics and ethno-nationalist discourse (Quigley 2014:192–194, 200; Frigyesi 1996:56, 73). Undoubtedly, the táncházmozgalom was also an exceptionally efficient way to graft traditional manners of entertainment into the urban environment, so much so that the most prominent actors of the Hungarian revival often regard the táncházmozgalom as a perfect method for ensuring the flawless survival of cultural goods collected in the peasant and post-peasant communities of the Carpathian Basin. Following the first half-century of the movement, however, these assertive claims require a thorough revision. The diverse and complex internal processes taking place within the five-decade revival require scholarly attention per se, and peculiar phenomena within the movement need to be assessed from an unbiased position. The author of this article is an actively involved member of the táncházmozgalom, and so this objective distance is sometimes difficult to maintain. Even so, the scholarly position, which attempts to follow Bartók's traces, might provide a balanced view since there are multiple relevant sources of non-Hungarian, hence inherently less biased, literature to rely on (Bartók 1976:28).

As the contributions made by the native performers of traditional practices play a salient role in the evolution of such movements, the attitude of actors in the revival towards these people becomes a fundamental determining factor. Tradition-bearers have many names within revival movements; they are referred to as “masters” and “teachers” as well as “informants” (Cashman et al. 2011:10–14). They normally come from the original environment of a given traditional material. They acquire their skills of conveying tradition through nonliterate transmission since the practices they represent were or are still in functional use in their lieu of origin (see also Goldstein 1964:125). Works of international relevance usually conceptualize revival movements in a generalized way, giving an extensive overview of their internal mechanisms along with their professional and ideological narratives. Many of these writings, at least briefly, address the issue of relations between the traditional masters and the rest of the revival movement. Morgenstern delineates the role of the “star-teacher”, as a traditional culture-bearer in many cases, who becomes an idolized, frequently idealized person in the eyes of revivalists, who intend to preserve the pathways of traditional methodology while learning as much as possible from these idols (Morgenstern 2020:361–362). Accordingly, táncház¹ musicians in Hungary adhered to the concept of learning from hearing and abstained from inauthentic solutions whenever possible from the onset. At the same time, many situations in which to learn from informants were intrinsically untraditional, and the actors of revival were not embedded in the local cultural context and communities of their masters. Therefore, in terms of the relationship between revivalists and their masters, a certain degree of recontextualization inevitably happens (Hill – Bithell 2014:15–19, see also Ronström 1996:12–16).

Village musicians have been regarded as the idolized and respected protagonists in the Hungarian táncházmozgalom from the very beginning. The accurate learning of their form language of expressing tradition is the basic principle of the movement. Although most of these musicians have passed away in recent decades, a handful are still with us. Since some of them are active participants in revival táncház events and concerts as highly esteemed guests, they have spent enough time within the revival to develop their own relationship with it, along with mutual impacts from both sides. The influence of the táncházmozgalom on their repertoire and performing manner is a decisive phenomenon in the revival, but also an issue not yet examined sufficiently. Nevertheless, analysis of their instrumental practice could provide valuable results that help to understand the revival-implicated evolution within their repertoire and playing technique. In this study, I attempt to present the musical metamorphosis of a peasant flutist, triggered by the impact of the Hungarian revival. The chosen musician is András Hodorog, a still-living peasant flute player from whom I acquired my instrumental skills as a flutist over the past two decades. During this period, I have spent significant time with Hodorog and have subjected him to multiple instrumental field recordings and interviews in addition to conducting many hearing-and-learning workshops with his participation. Having witnessed the constant development and plasticity of his style of musical performance, I aim to show this musical form language through the comparative analysis of multiple instrumental recordings of a single dance tune made at different stages of his course as a flute player.

The research of traditional instrumental music in Hungary

The initial focus of Hungarian folk music research was the analysis and classification of vocal items. Instrumental material had a secondary role for multiple reasons. Firstly, most of the pertaining tunes are instrumental variations of folksongs (Kodály 1969:86). Secondly, since pioneering Hungarian ethnomusicologists possessed fewer recorded items, extensive scholarly processing of these could not begin for decades, making the instrumental material less suitable for systematization than the vocal tune stock. Nevertheless, instrumental field recordings were made in considerable numbers from the beginning and gradually earned more and more importance in folk music research. While interest in instrumental music gained firm fundaments during the mid-1930s with the Pátria recording program focusing on peasant musicians, its real heyday began from the early 1960s onwards, with the beginning of extensive folk-dance research, which gained further momentum following the birth of the táncházmozgalom in 1972. Since then, public interest has largely shifted towards the instrumental material. The primary reason for this is that the vocal tune stock is now considered mostly complete; there is little chance of finding new, utterly different melodic types. In contrast, due to the peculiarities of performance, and perhaps a compensatory approach towards its late-efflorescing research, the inventory of instrumental traditional music is commonly regarded as a bottomless well from which exciting novelties can be drawn even today. Consequently, the quantity of recorded instrumental music gathered since the beginning of the táncházmozgalom exceeds the vocal material collected over the past 50 years.

This abundance of collected items urges contemporary research in Hungary to drill deeper into the peculiarities of traditional performing practice. The basic foundations as well as the mainstream methods of the most recent Hungarian scholarly approach to instrumental music were introduced by Transylvanian Hungarian ethnomusicologist István Pávai, the first Hungarian researcher to suggest that the competence-based approach of Chomskyan generative linguistics is appropriate while modeling the mental processes underlying traditional music-making (Pávai 2020:360; see also Chomsky 1964:50–108). Pávai's methodology and the introduction of certain linguistic tools into Hungarian ethnomusicology is an organic sequel to the antecedents of Hungarian research.

Pávai, however, focuses mainly on instrumental folk dance music, which evolved in traditional musician-dancer or performer-audience situations and was optimized to performances “by people for other peopleˮ (Merriam 1964:6, 33). Nevertheless, the investigation of music performed alone and used for self-entertainment can provide exciting results as well. It is particularly relevant in terms of the mental processes behind the actual performance; as musicians playing for their own joy are less determined by the needs and demands of the audiences, who play a decisive role in dance music (Pávai 2020:198–199).

Changes in the status of a Moldavian Csángó flute player

András Hodorog, a Hungarian flute player from the Eastern Romanian village of Klézse (Cleja, jud. Bacau) has been a proficient player of his instrument since his adolescence.² He belongs to the easternmost Hungarian-speaking ethnic subgroup, the Csángó people of Moldavia, living beyond the ridge of the Eastern Carpathians, outside of the Carpathian Basin (Domokos – Rajeczky 1991:12–14; see also Pávai 2002:42–48). The Hungarian dialect of the Csángó was subject to less lingusistic change than the dialects used within the Carpathian Basin, and likewise, their vocal repertoire includes many songs from the earliest stylistic strata of Hungarian folk music (Pávai 2002:42–48). In the meantime, their stock of instrumental tunes for dance accompaniment and their pertinent dances are roughly identical to those of the surrounding Romanian ethnicity, with a few exceptions (Martin 2020b:297–299).

Unlike material collected from Hungary or Transylvania, the repertoire of Hungarian music and dance in Moldavia was discovered and popularized relatively late by the Hungarian táncházmozgalom; the first Moldavian táncház events were not launched until the end of the 1980s, after which they quickly gained popularity. These events were more accessible to outsiders than the mainstream of the revival because the circle dances of Moldavia were easier to learn than the more complicated solo and couple's dances from within the Carpathian Basin, which had been commonly practiced at revival events until that point. In addition, since these circle dances lack technically difficult dance figures or the complex proximity issues of an improvisational couple's dance, learners begin to enjoy the dancing at an earlier point, yet the vibes of collective dancing convey the sensation of togetherness. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the “Moldavian” branch of the revival was less scrupulous about maintaining the general principles of authenticity kept in mind by the rest of the táncházmozgalom. This meant new, untraditional roles, performing situations and functions to which the musicians had to conform, including invited village performers like András Hodorog (see also Lipták 2018:40–43).

To understand this change of role, one must be familiar with the original function of the flute along with the status of its player within the traditional communities of Moldavia. The earliest source mentioning extensive use of the instrument was authored by the Csángó-born Roman Catholic rector of Klézse, János Petrás Ince in 1843. “The flute, named söltü, is rare for a lad to not have. Its sound whizzes through the woods and meadows where lads are going around. It's not an uninteresting sound for the girls doing harvest work or other tasks in the fields.” (Domokos – Rajeczky 1956:57).

Indeed, the flute has been commonly used in Csángó villages until recently. However, apart from the musical accompaniment of certain customs and some small, intimate social events – wool-spinning sessions, for example – the instrument was used mainly for self-entertainment (Sárosi 1962:604; Juhász 2001:447–453). On the other hand, professional musicians hired for weekend dances, baptism feasts or weddings were mostly Romanian-speaking Roma musicians living in enclave-like villages. These performers provided music for the settlements inhabited by ethnic Romanians and Hungarians within their vicinity. Their instruments were fiddle with koboz/cobza and lap-held cimbalom, which have since been replaced by saxophone, accordion, and eventually synthesizer in the most recent decades. Following the spread of brass instruments in the region after the first half of the 20th century, brass bands were also formed to fulfill a similar function (Pávai 2020:126–127, 227–228; see also Németh 2021:16–17).

Flutists, therefore, never had to perform as hired musicians to satisfy the musical needs of their community. Consequently, their musical competence lacked the extent of melodic, rhythmic, and repertorial consistency and discipline that constituted a fundamental standard for Roma musicians raised to play music from childhood. In the meantime, the lack of professionality meant a certain level of freedom in musical performance, without the compulsion to conform to the strict rules of dance music. Therefore, dance melodies often appear in the flute field recordings with peculiar performance. They have a quasi giusto manner featuring inserted rhythmic or metric units and unusually slow or fast tempos, which make the given performance unfit to accompany actual dancers while generating a specific and relatively consistent flutists' interpretation of dance tunes.

The performance of a solitary flutist

Even today, research dedicated to the phenomenon of the lonely musician playing solely for self-entertainment is rather marginal in the field of international ethnomusicology. Mainstream scholarly discourse typically regards music-making as an obviously social act and puts focus on the performer-receiver interaction. The performance of the solitary musician therefore remains in the penumbra, out of the limelight of interest. Naturally, there are methodological reasons for this neglect. Among others, the documentation of a solitary performance inherently carries the risk of inauthentic results as even the very presence of the field researcher creates a social situation which affects the performer and therefore generates a peculiar “Heisenberg-uncertainty” in terms of performance analysis (Killick 2006:294).

In his essay Musicking. The Meanings of Performing and Listening, Christopher Small illustrates the intimate status of the solitary musician through that of a fictional African herder playing his flute (Small 1998:201–206). Whether the situation is imaginary or not, Small's description outlines the most important objective, material, and spiritual links between the lonely flutist and his socio-cultural environment, factors which are embedded deeply in his performance and musical thinking, even in his absolute loneliness. At the same time, even on the level of imagination, the performance of an isolated herder cannot be always considered a situation of true loneliness (Juhász 2001:450–451). Playing for the herd can also involve a performer-audience interaction, as long as the herdsman regards the animals as mindful receivers, even if their perceptions of the music are, in most cases, less conscious. However, even if this principle impacts the herdsman's performance, playing for the animals usually has functional purposes, such as healing, tranquilizing or giving directions, through signals (Juhász 2001:452). The function of entertainment, as in the way a human can entertain another one, mostly remains truly solitary in such situations. Andrew Killick takes a more analytic approach to delineating the phenomenon of the solitary musician. In his study, he introduces the term holicipation to point out the integrated and complete micro-universe created by lonely music-making and to emphasize the equality and legitimacy of a performance made alone (Killick 2006:274–275, see also Morgenstern 2018:33–35).

Taking these into consideration, the musical presence of András Hodorog during his early years could be chiefly characterized by Killick's concept, meaning that he was both the performer as well as the audience in one person. Apart from this, Hodorog's audience on some occasions consisted of only a few people at most; he never played in orchestral situations and his performance did not have to meet any of the strict social standards comparable to the consistent and extensive demands that professional Romani musicians had to follow in Moldavian villages. In other words, András Hodorog was not a performer, but rather a member of the audience in the dance events of his village.

Later, when the folk enthusiasts of Budapest began to transmit the music and dance of Moldavia in their urban táncház events, new trends emerged, and these differed greatly from the traditional frames mentioned before. Among other changes, a redefined band line-up slowly became standardized, including flute, fiddle, koboz, and the two-sided drum (Lipták 2018:40–43). Therefore, flutists gained a leading role in táncház bands, along with fiddlers, or even without them.

Compared to their original function in the rural environment, this meant new challenges for peasant flutists such as András. All of a sudden musicians who had played their flutes as soloists throughout their entire lifetime needed to conform to orchestral situations, not only adapting to their fellow musicians, but also to the musical needs of the Hungarian dancing audience. These needs often differed from the original cultural frames of Moldavian dances and the preferences of its native dancers. The difference between common Hungarian and the dialect spoken by these informants also complicated communication and generated many misunderstandings (see also Pávai 2020:328–331). In one of my interviews with András, he summarizes the usual issues of a dance hall event in Budapest as follows: “Now it's all mixed up. Flutists too (…) start to play like in Klézse [his native village], they play a few lines from Klézse and then skip over to the Pusztina style [Pustiana, jud. Bacau, a village not far from Klézse], and then they skip over to whatever (…) the dancers [in Budapest] have mixed up everything (…) and that's in the music too.^”3

Although he is concerned about the irregularities of transformed táncház-situations, Hodorog has regularly visited revival events for 30 years. Gradually, he has accepted the challenges posed by the new milieu and adapted to them, corresponding to his own musical identity. This change in style can be observed if we compare his pre-revival recordings with the ones made over the past three decades.

For this comparison, a dance tune called serény magyaros (lit. brisk dance in Hungarian style), which he performed in his earliest recordings and still plays these days, seems to be a viable choice.

Different Embodiments of the same tune: the Serény Magyaros

The serény magyaros dance has a modified strophic structure which might be related to many four-lined folksong-parallels in the stock of Hungarian tunes from all over the language area. To understand the musical concept András utilizes, we must apply structural and motivic analysis to the melody. Its core structure consists of two different lines (A and B), each with structural repetitions. The repetitions indicated by the repeat marks, however, are non-structural, meaning their purpose is the extension of the musical strophe to conform to the choreography of the serény magyaros dance. The function of the C lines is the same: They are musical inserts, similarly, for choreographic reasons. The melody, therefore, can be divided into three parts - A, B, and C based on the choreography of the dance. This consists of sideward steps at part A, and the rotation of the circle in both directions at B and C. The melodic skeleton itself represents a descending pattern of pentatonic origin. For further analysis, I have chosen to divide the strophic tune into one-bar units. With this division, the following basic rhythmical-melodical inventory can be assigned to the melodic skeleton and its four-bar lines as indicated by the upper-case letter of the given line with suffixed numerals (Fig. 1).

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The melodic skeleton of the serény magyaros tune. (transcription by Soma Salamon)

Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 68, 2; 10.1556/022.2024.00010

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Even by applying the basic segmentation, multiple conclusions can be drawn. The units indicated with the numeric suffix 1 reappear in the third measure of all lines. Apparently, units A2 and A3 represent similar musical passages, with the former bending toward the keynote and the latter finishing on the fifth. An obvious fifth-relation appears in the caesurae between A3 and B3 and between the second halves of A1 and B1. The end of line C, however, does not convey new material, but repeats B3, making the C lines unfit for the quintal shift, the question-answer V–I tonal relation of the previous endings. This, along with the reappearance of a B2 instead of a C2, further confirms that part C is an appended musical part, as discussed above. Moreover, in the second repetition of the C line, B1 is usually used in the third measure, which therefore rhymes with the last two bars of part B. In order to illustrate András's form language and presumably modular musical thinking – and to facilitate a more effective comparison - I have also assigned a variant number to the above units when they appear in András Hodorog's performance. In the transcriptions, I indicate these with the letter “v” and an additional numeric suffix. The latter is changed when a particular unit has sufficiently different melodic and rhythmic characters to be considered a variant.

One serény magyaros tune, which András Hodorog performed on a 1965 field recording, displays the firm technical skills of a young peasant musician at the age of 23 (see Appendix 1; the given tunes can be heard by scanning the QR codes in Appendix).⁴ At the same time, the performance reveals that during his early years, Hodorog neither had to adapt to fellow musicians in orchestral situations nor conform to the demands of dancing masses. This is indicated by the unstable intonation and certain melodic patterns which differ from the orchestral version of this particular dance tune. We can also observe no significant motivic variability between the consecutive three stanzas of the recording; the melody is played by young András in a relatively uniform way throughout. The abundance of overtones and flageolets visible in the transcription and audible in the recording are not signs of technical virtuosity. They are rather the strained sounds of an instrument, presumably one with a labium or windway of inferior quality. Moreover, Hodorog first performs the tune with parts A and B, but the second time he adds part C as well. The dance is known and used with only parts A and B as well as with A, B, and C, but in the latter case, the fixed choreographic structure also needs an inserted part. The two forms cannot fit simultaneously as this would confuse the dancers. Therefore, the serény magyaros played on the recording is certainly not suitable for dance accompaniment. Perhaps the occasional playing of dance music at wool-spinning gatherings did not provide a degree of instrumental awareness and consistent musical thinking that would enable young Hodorog to perform a version that was also suitable for dance accompaniment in an untraditional, field-recorded situation.

Another version of the same tune, performed in 1985, provides a good opportunity for comparison (see Appendix 2).⁵ This was only a few years before the onset of the Moldovan branch within the Hungarian revival and Hodorog's first encounter with a Hungarian táncház. The tune structure seems still slightly randomized, and in this regard it resembles the version recorded in 1965. However, the ornaments and the phraseology already reveal remarkable musical skill. In the liberal interpretation of the tune structure, there is a relative similarity between the 1965 and 1985 versions, whereas the performing manner and the playing technique show definite development. This presumably suggests that Hodorog did not really engage in social music activity for over 20 years, and yet he had ambitions to improve himself on the flute. The village community had no particular expectations of his instrumental performance. Thus, in the absence of such factors, Hodorog's musical form language evolved, but not according to social demands. In terms of tempo and structure, his playing is still less precise than that of the flutists belonging to the immediately preceding generation, who engaged more in providing music for social situations. For comparison, the serény magyaros performances of fellow flutists from Klézse, Ferenc Benke Pap (b. 1918) or Illés Bálint, also a flute player from Csík (Ciucani, jud. Bacau, b. 1922), are less ornamented, representing a fixed structure with a more consistent pace and danceable character (see Appendix 6 and 7).

The following example is a variant, recorded by me in 2016 – fifty-one years after the 1965 recording and twenty-six years after Hodorog became the most prominent informant of the Moldavian branch of the revival. In this case, the full structure is performed twice with all repetitions and inserts (see Appendix 3). Compared with the first two examples, his intonation and phraseology seemed to be far more accurate and mature. This is due not only to the decades passed but also to nearly 30 years spent playing in orchestral, revival situations. The rhythm is steadier, with precisely articulated patterns to emphasize the dynamics of the dance, proving that its player by then had firm skills in playing to meet the dancers' demands.

During the evaluation, I put the results into a chart, from which several observations can be made. It is important to note that the variant numbers are indicators of a particular recording's variability, referring to the given tune, so for example, the A1v2 in the 1965 recording is not necessarily identical to A1v2 in the one from 2016 (Fig. 2).

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Chart of the variant units. a) 1965 recording; b) 1985 recording; c) 2016 recording

Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 68, 2; 10.1556/022.2024.00010

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The structural frame of the melody is obviously the primary factor determining the application of motifs and ornaments. This means the contour of the melodic skeleton and the rhythmic character of the dance are presumably the subconscious underlying fundament of the performer's competence pertaining to the given tune (Pávai 2020:360). There are more persistent units, like the endings of parts A, B, and C, whereas others are more variable, like the one labeled as B1 with 5 variants or the B2 with 4 variants. In addition, these latter ones seem to be rather versatile, as they are used as substitutes in part C, especially in the last line. This corroborates with the premise that C is an appended insert with a less independent melodic character of its own. Furthermore, certain units have coherent connections with one another; these appear around the above-mentioned endings with a more fixed form. Although the octave shift has no significant importance in this particular case, the patterns played in the low register are more decorated musically. It should be noted as well that in any given part, the first appearance of a particular unit is usually simpler, while its reappearances, presumably considered repetitions by the performer, are mostly more complicated variations. This phenomenon suggests that the performer regards lines as musical units.

As time passes, more variants appear in Hodorog's performance, albeit their occurrence is certainly more moderate in the pre-revival recording made in 1985. The tune played in 2016 shows Hodorog's fully developed form language. Not only is the number of variants used the highest here, but their musical elaboration is also the most detailed. Variants in the earlier performances are often just permuted shapeshifts of one pattern without forming a new musical thought. The later ones, at the same time, distinctly differ from each other in musical character, proving that their performers' ingenuity changed greatly over the decades, illustrated as follows. If we, for example, juxtapose the A1 variants of the earlier recordings with the ones performed in 2016, the contrast is clearly visible. While the earlier variants are mostly permutations of a pattern of mechanical leaping between the fifth and the octave, the recent ones convey more inventive patterns, with the inclusion of diatonic descendance and also the octave-fifth leap (Fig. 3).

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Variants of the A1 unit. a) 1965; b) 1985; c) 2016

Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 68, 2; 10.1556/022.2024.00010

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Other variants from the 2016 recording, like A2v2 (see Fig. 4), have a melodic motion, which even imitates the tonal environment of a possible chordal accompaniment. Passage 5-VII-b3-2 ending this unit, which anticipates the arrival to the 1st degree, gives the tonal sense of the parallel major and even the subtonic. Although a short one, the pattern still presumes a peculiar harmonic component in Hodorog's variant-creating cognitive scheme, performed by a player without any formal musical education. The reason might possibly be the experience perceived in revival orchestral line-ups with instruments providing chordal accompaniment.

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A2v2 unit, 2016

Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 68, 2; 10.1556/022.2024.00010

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A deeper insight is not possible without a more detailed analytic segmentation which divides the examined tunes into units of half-measure length or even smaller parts. Such an analysis allows us to observe identical melodic elements used in different structural locations of the melodic skeleton in contrasting functions. It allows us to observe formal-morphological relationships between individual units. Finally, once these small musical particles are examined, we can also make a melodic comparison with other melodies recorded from Hodorog to uncover and understand his formal language as fully as possible. This investigation, however, requires voluminous research, monographic in scope, which exceeds the framework of the present study (Fig. 5).

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Excerpts from the 2016 recording. a) inversion-like variants in B1v4 and B1v5 (in the frames); b) identical half-bar patterns at A2v1 and A3v2 (in the frames); c) similar musical thought in A1v1 and A1v2 (in the frames); d) fifth-parallel between A3v1 and B3v1

Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 68, 2; 10.1556/022.2024.00010

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It is without doubt that the melodic shape of the motifs is primarily determined by the incipits, cadences, directions, pivot points, and inflections of the melodic skeleton. At the same time, the elaboration of the units depends greatly on their location within the structure, as well as on the consecutive variations influence the melodic configuration of each other. Among others, the complex application of transient passages of the tune and the creative use of Vorschlags proves that the melodic elements are in organic connection, which enables the performer to express comprehensive musical thoughts.

A lead fiddler on the flute

It is unlikely that Hodorog himself conceptualizes his music as a rigid system of sub-units. On the contrary, his performance indicates the existence of an actual musical form language, the expression of which proves the existence of a firm mental scheme behind the performance, although not necessarily applied consciously. Both his inventory and the realization of its items suggest that his performance is driven by principles comparable to the phonology and syntax of human languages (see Chomsky 2002:11–13; see also Chomsky – Halle 1968:viii–x). His unusual form language pertains to all of the dance melodies he plays as each one has its pertinent toolkit of motifs and ornaments with occasional overlaps. Moreover, the set of variants in his performance are not fixed and are subject to constant change. Some remain used for longer periods, becoming lexicalized, just like idioms in language. Meanwhile, new variants may emerge, and old ones may be retained or even simply disappear.

My interviews with him indicate that Hodorog is well aware of his unique musical style. However, he considers it as an imitation of the fiddlers' playing technique he stored from memories in his musical competence. “We were with gypsies a lot. Mandache [Mandache Aurel, a Roma fiddler], Paun Vasi [Paun Vasile, another Roma musician], may God rest them in peace, they were good people. (…) for about twenty years, we ate together, slept together, and played music together. And not only that now, but I was a child, I remember their music. Maybe it was the grandfather of Mandache, from whom I heard it. Or the one of Paun Vasi. I didn't only hear it from them, but they also learned it from their father, or I don't know who. But by then, when I'm alone and I start to blow something, I remember all the beautiful music, (…) musicians, (…) I remember all those violins. And I remember them (…) all these things that come to mind, that's what I like to try out. I've heard it, I like it, and I feel that if I start playing together with someone, we can't get together. (…) Because I don't notice it, and then I just swap to the violin.”⁶

Pursuant to his claim, Hodorog imitates the violin when he plays the flute. However, his ornaments and his melody shaping differ from the variants of the same dance tunes played on the fiddle (see Appendices 4 and 5). Presumably, he means “swapping to the violin” in a more abstract way than the accurate copying of violin versions played by past Roma fiddlers. In this interpretation, playing flute after the violin means expanding the technical frames of the instrument compared to the flute playing he once heard from fellow village folk. It means more ornaments, more elaborate, more cunning melody shaping, with a more dance-like rhythmic character. In other words, this means that Hodorog would gladly dance to a music of this style as a member of the audience. This, however, remarks a stark difference between the approach of a Roma musician and his own. A Roma fiddler prioritizes the demand of the audience based on its feedback and his own music studies. Hodorog, on the other hand, defines these musical demands for himself in an irregular superposition, where he represents both the musician's side and the dancer's side since he was once an active dancing member of his peasant community. While a Roma fiddler plays according to the dancers' demand, Hodorog makes dance music according to his own demand in an imaginary or recalled situation where he is the dancer.

The interview excerpt above also reveals that Hodorog's awareness of his musical style as well as its incompatibility with other flutists' performances. Presumably, this discrepancy between his form and the music of other flutists created a peculiar performer's identity of a binary nature. He needs to conform to the musician-companions’ style when the situation requires. At the same time, this identity makes him evolve further in his own distinguished ways as he obviously enjoys his musical supremacy above fellow flutists as well as the acknowledgment of the revivalist audience and his pupils. It is also obvious that this form language, although it was created and evolved due to the revival, does not really work in an orchestral situation. His style is a unique response to the untraditional situations he engaged in during the past decades, yet it does not conform to the requirements of musical teamwork, and so he needs to play in a less elaborate manner when he plays together with others. Hodorog normally considers playing with other flutists or even revivalist violinists as an uncomfortable situation in which his unique musicality is forced into tight frames. If he needs to play with other flutists, he prefers only a few people. These are proficient in his style enough to know that his form language is almost completely unpredictable, but to a certain extent can read his patterns and roughly anticipate the next few passages within the improvisational musical texture he weaves. Above all, they know when to step back a little, playing with less volume to avoid melodic collisions. Hence, they create the illusion of harmonic or unison performance as well as showcasing their proficiency in Hodorog's musical style.⁷

Although micro-interactions like this also exist among Roma musicians in traditional string ensembles, such functionally self-oriented musical expressions rarely occur (Pávai 2020:325–328). This suggests that even today András Hodorog is still a solitary musician as he once was during his early years. Many factors seem to underline this. Examining the serény magyaros of 2016, it seems Hodorog still prefers to use the lower registers of his flute, as his ornaments and his unique melody-shaping are more elaborated and diverse in the passages played low. At the same time, this register is barely audible, especially when singing and dancing happen at the same time. Without a PA (sound amplification) system, the elaborated patterns played in a low register will perish among the noises of the background, even in the context of an intimate wool-spinning session. Hodorog, therefore, usually plays these either alone or into a stage microphone. However, in the latter case, he prefers to perform without any other flutists as they are not able to produce the melody the same way he does, as stated above.

The musical expression of the peasant informant placed into a different environment has thus undergone metamorphosis. From a traditional flute player with a more structurally liberal but less musically elaborate performance, he became a professional musician with a consistent musical language under the impact of the Hungarian revival. From a solitary musician, he became a “lead fiddler” on his flutes, a musician constantly engaging in social performing situations. Yet, his fundamental approach has remained one of a solitary musician, thus creating irregular micro-interactions, problems, and occasional solutions from time to time, from performing situation to performing situation. The approach of a solitary musician determines his identity as a performer and orchestra member as well. His musical character has uplifted Hodorog from the ranks of other Hungarian peasant flutists and made him an idolized master for many young revivalists. For one thing, his performance crossed the traditional frames for the authentic function of the flute, but at the same time, his inherent musicality and traditional competence gained a new way to express itself. No doubt, his evolution as a musician is irregular. It differs even from the status of other non-Roma musicians, like peasant fiddlers, as those were regular providers of music for shorter or longer periods during their lifetime. At the same time, this unique hybridization created a conscious musician self with a form language that relies on the elements of his traditional competence and innate creativity. András Hodorog's special music could not have evolved within the frames of its traditional environment if left unspoiled by the mechanisms of the revival.

Soma Salamon DLA, folk musician and ethnomusicologist, is a research fellow at HUN-REN RCH Institute for Musicology. Besides his active performing career, which spans multiple decades and continents, he is the folk music program curator and consultant for the House of Music in Budapest. His main fields of research are traditional flutes in the Carpathian Basin, methodology and comparative analysis in Hungarian ethnomusicology, the international relations of Hungarian ethnomusicology and folklore studies, the typology of Hungarian folk melodies, the Transylvanian field recordings of Béla Bartók, the historical and multicultural relations of stylistic strata in Hungarian folk music, the international reception of Hungarian folk music research, and the distinction and borderlands between folk music and world music.