Customer Reviews

Csárdás: Hungarian Gypsy Music

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Santa Ferenc is a well respected virtuoso gypsy violinist & composer, who was born in Kaposvar, Hungary. The music on this CD is beautiful and is known to most Hungarians. It is played by a master violinist and his gypsy band with perfection ... This is the music one would hear played by a strolling "primas" (first violinist) and his band as they wander from table to table, serenading the patrons at a fancy restaurant. Whoever wrote anonymous, is perhaps refering to the fact the music is traditional and therefore no one knows the composers or origin of the music. (Please be aware that "Santa" is pronounced, "Shanta" with the first 'a' sounding like the American 'aah' and the second 'a' sounding like the vowel in 'up'.) Rest assured, this is among the finest violin music available anywhere & at an unbelievable price ...

This CD is a worthy addition to anyone's collection of traditional Hungarian music. It is filled with fancy violin embellishments which takes years & years to master, cimbalom improvisations (similar to hammered dulcimer), and the tarogato, a Hungarian wind instrument, which resembles a clarinet in appearance but has the mellow tones like a shawm oboe. The word, "csardas" refers to the Hungarian dance composed of fast and slow rhythms, that is often played at break-neck speed, creating exhilaration and excitement in dancers and listeners alike. ('cs' is pronounced like the American 'ch', the first 'a' is pronounced more like 'aah' and the second 'a', is pronounced like 'on', the accent is always the first syllable, & clipped, which gives the Hungarian language its musical quality in speech). The music is exciting, energetic, exhilarating and covers a wide range of styles and regions. Anyone interested in traditional music from Eastern Europe would love it. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Being Hungarian myself, the son of a musician (my father plays the cimbalom) and a musician myself, I'd be lying if I said this CD by Santa Ferenc is great. Good? Yes. And well worth the price, but I've heard better Hungarian gypsy violinist in my time. If you really want to hear great Hungarian music try to find LPs by the lengendary Babai Bela, Lakatos Sandor, Berki Laszlo, and Banyak Kalman. Santa Ferenc has some good arrangements but lacks the feeling and depth of these other musicians. Although it probably isn't fair to him to compare him to others and is best if we judge his music purely on its own merits.

If you are familiar with Hungarian music you'll probably recognize many of the songs on the CD. They consist mainly of standard Hungarian and some Romanian gypsy songs. Track three which is titled on here merely as "Hungarian Songs" starts off with a song called "Gloomy Sunday" a song once deemed a suicide theme. We then have "Whistling Hora" a Romanian tune which has a nice arrangement and allows for some good solos. One of my favorite tracks on the album is "Doina and Hora" which is Romania but I believe the piece is really titled "Giabaralele" at least it sounds awfully close to it. It is a cimbalom solo, which unfortunately the album doesn't give credit to the other members in Santa's band. Whomever is on the cimbalom is quite good. He also has a good solo on another Romanian piece "The Lark" or as it is known in Romanian "Ciocirlia".

I've read some people have complained about the "sound" of the album, claiming it is not authentic Hungarian music. I honestly have no clue what they are talking about. I can honestly say, without exaggeration, I have listen to this music every day of my life since as far back as I can remember and this CD sounds pretty much like what you'd expect a Hungarian gypsy album to sound like.

Again, while it's not fair to compare Santa Ferenc (whom for the sake of complete honesty I should admit knows my father) to other Hungarian musicians, I still feel Santa merely plays the songs and doesn't add much emotion to them, the CD is still one most fans of Hungarian music should enjoy. *** 1\2 out of *****

Bottom-line: While not a great CD and not a great musician Santa Ferenc does have some good arrangements and good musicians backing him up plus a nice collection of famous Hungarian and Romanian songs. While he doesn't compare to other great musicians, for the price it is well worth it and doesn't need to compare.

I was searching for a CD of some Hungarian music like what I had experienced live in my local Hungarian community. And most representative of that is naturally Hungarians' favourite, the Gypsy music.

But doing a search for gypsy music here on Amazon, I found myself dauntingly confronted with a vast variety of styles and competing claims to "authenticity". After plowing through clips from literally dozens of CDs, I came to this one with low expectations for such a modestly priced collection as this. But one listen and I said "Eureka, I've finally found it! This is IT!!"

I'm no expert on gypsy music, so some purists may dismiss this as not being "authentic" enough, but all I know is that THIS is the music that the Hungarians I know listen to and love. I preferred this CD over Sandor Deki Lakatos because it doesn't seem so overly polished, and the recording itself seems to best capture the ambience of the Hungarian music I have experienced at my local Hungarian hall.

And the other reviews here also seem to indicate that this particular CD has struck a chord of deep fondness and familiarity with people from within the Hungarian community.

So although you might not expect much for this price, I'd say that actually this is a real bargain and a great place to start your appreciation of this rich musical heritage.

And to all my Hungarian friends out there, I say a huge "köszönöm" for sharing your fabulous culture with me. I love it!

My grandfather listen to alot of this music as I was growing up and I was hoping this cd would be like revisiting a stay at his house. On some levels it was, the basic sound was there, and some of the songs sounded right but there was not that fevered pitch that I was used to in Hungarian Gypsy Music. Some of the songs sounded totatly different from what I expected, there was one that broke down into this atonal, disjuncted fiddle and horns combo that I had never incountered before.

Not what I was expecting and wanting but still brings back fond memories.

This is a wonderful album. So many old songs are here. Songs that I grew up with and sang with my mother and father. They are also well played. A problem is that there are no titles of the songs being played. I would have appreciated having the cuts and song titles matched.

This music is amazing. Authentically captures the spirit of traditional gypsy folk music wonderfully. I guess the best way to describe this music is to tell you what the liner notes say: "Popular Hungarian gypsy music owes much of its form to earlier aristocratic encouragement. In particular the csardas, which makes use of folk elements, provided entertainment for the nobility, among whom it was supposed that the csardas, which derives its name from the word csarda, a country inn, was danced on Sunday afternoonns by the peasantry. The dance was introduced to polite society in the late 1830s, notably, it is said, by Count Bela Wenckheim, who coined the name. The csardas is similar in form to the verbunkos or recruiting-dance, with its slow opening section and rapid second section, and has come to epitomize Hunagarian gypsy music. It was Franz Liszt who, in the heyday of musical nationalism, seized on the csardas as a source for his Hungarian Rhapsodies, wrongly supposing this to be an example of real Hungarian folk music, rather than the hybrid form that it was. It was left to Bela Bartok and Kodaly in a later generation to collect and classify the true folk music of Hungary and neighboring regions, distinguishing this from the form of popular music provided by the gypsy bands. The bands themselves have long history, whether providing music for the Esterhazy family at their great palace of Esteraza in the time of Franz Josef Hadyn or for later generations in less distinguished surroundings. Basic instrumentation continues very largely the traditions of the 18th Century, with a solo violin carrying the improvisatory melodic burden, accompanied by a second violin or viola, double bass and cimbalom, with the additional use of the the tarogato, an instrument similar in timbre to the clarinet, which sometimes replaces it. The tarogato has a long association with Hungarian nationalism and was at one time banned by the Austrian authorities for that very reason. The music of Ferenc Santa and his gypsy band includes examples of the csardas, with the famous use of the form by the Italian violinist Vittorio Monti (1868-1922), who made his later career in Paris. Also included is Skylark by the Romanian violinist and Carl Flesch pupil Grigoras Dinicu (1889-1949), who arranged a number of popular Romanian melodies and is well remembered for his famous Hora Staccato, using the traditional dance-form, also coupled here with a traditional doina, a popular improvisatory form. In addition to the prominent sol violin, the gypsy band also provides variety in solos for the cimbalom, with reminiscences of material used by Kodaly in his Hary Janos, and for the characteristic tarogato." So there you have a bit of history behind these folk tunes. It is strangely evocative, fiery, nationalistic music that has influenced Western music in several ways. I even sensed some jazz-type rhythms in track 3. Check out Ligeti's Old Hungarian Parlor Dances - seems like he draws much of this piece from these gypsy rhythms, especially track 8. Wonder if this Ferenc Santa ever tours as I would love to hear him and his band perform live - just you dare try to keep your feet still when listening to this! Pick this Naxos gem up today, especially if you have some Hungarian roots like me - this music will come alive for you, it's in your blood. Enjoy!

I just loved this CD, It just reminds me of when I was a girl on Saturday mornings anticipating the hungarian music programs on the radio. It brings tears of joy to my eyes and a warmth to my heart.

I just loved this CD, It just reminds me of when I was a girl on Saturday mornings anticipating the hungarian music programs on the radio. It brings tears of joy to my eyes and a warmth to my heart.

Actually 4 tracks on this disc are not Hungarian, but Romanian music played by Hungarians, though it doesn't explicitly say so (I'm speaking of tracks 4, 5, 9 and 10).
Firstly, the Skylark ("Ciocârlia") is a famous traditional song composed by Romanian Gypsy musician Anghelus Dinicu in 1889, based on a Romanian folk tune. The song was later made popular by his grandson, virtuoso violinist Grigoras Dinicu and by violinist/composer George Enescu.
As for the 'doinas' and 'horas':
The 'doina' is a type of slow Romanian folk lyrical melody, expressing feelings of yearning, sadness or love. The 'hora' is a Romanian folk dance music found in all parts of the country.
The doinas and horas on this CD are definitely Romanian music, with some slow parts thrown in, consisting of a waltzy-restaurant-style music.

The music is what I expected and the delivery and price were very acceptable. All was in excellent condition when it arrived.