Music History of Hungary - 18th Century

18th Century

During the 18th century, students at Hungary's Calvinist colleges, some of whom, being minor nobles, lived in small rural villages, brought with them to their schools their regional styles of music. Colleges like Sárospatak and Székelyudvarhely developed choirs that adopted new elements like polyphony. György Maróthi of Debrecen published several influential works, and his French psalm book became very popular . By around 1790, the four voice choirs were expanded to eight using accessory voices like accantus, subcantus and concantus, and the discant voice was systematically transpoed into a lower pitch, producing a new form of choral design with similarities to medieval organum and fauxbourdon . The same period saw the popularity of homophoning songs which are recorded in the students' song books; notation, however, was crude, and no extensive collection appeared until 1853, with the publication of Ádám Pálóczi Horváth's Ötödfélszáz Énekek . These songs show that the mid to late 18th century was a period when the old Hungarian styles died out, and a new style appeared .

Many Hungarian musicians and composers of the 18th century preached closer cultural ties with Europe, not believing that Hungarian music could reach the levels of development in Italy and Germany . The aristocracy were interested in the court music of Louis XIV, like the minuet and rondeaux . Many of these people tried to popularize Viennese-style songs with Hungarian texts, or to use German and Italian forms; these people included the poet László Amadé, novelist Ignác Mészáros and the author and linguist Ferenc Verseghy . Hungarian music did, however, have an effect on composers from elsewhere in Europe. Joseph Haydn's Rondo all' Ongarese (from the Trio in G major (No. 1)), is an example, as is the finale of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), which uses a Magyar march, and Symphony No. 7, which is a 2/4 tempo with a syncopated rhythm. Beethoven also used Hungarian idioms in the prologue of King Stephen and the epiloque for Ruins of Athens .

The 18th century also saw the rise of verbunkos, a form of music that was used by army recruiters. Like much of Hungarian music at the time, it was focused on the melody, with a subordinate text; in spite of this, the vocals became a major part of verbunkos .