December 1, 2007 at 4:19 PM
If all the Hungarian violinists who were worthy of careers actually had them how many other violinists would have careers?My wife is a member of the Houston Symphony Chorus. They toured in Europe last summer and one of the concerts was at the Ferenc Liszt Academy with the Budapest Concert Orchestra. . The first half of the program was virtuoso show pieces by a local violinist, Ferenc Szecsődi. I have never heard of him. She has a souvenir CD that is quite exciting.
So here is one of my favorite Hungarians, Katica Illenyi playing Monti's Csardas, just posted on Youtube (watch and listen to the very end):
Here she is playing with her younger brother Csaba(Four Brothers)
Here she is singing Amazing Grace
To see a lot more then navigate this link:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=illenyi&search=Search
I heard that because a lot of Hungarians don't learn other languages, they tend to not travel around as much, and stay in Hungary. As a result, they don't get the exposure that a lot of other people, especially those who speak English, do.
Thank goodness an American can have a career in Europe and Asia without speaking every language there. But given all the local talent I wonder how many times our stars actually get to perform in Hungary. :)
One thing that should be mentioned is that Hungary has one of the best music education systems in the world--it started with Zoltan Kodaly and apparently is still going as strong as ever. (Not to mention the long tradition of virtuoso gypsy violinists, but anyway.) Hungary is a nation of musicians. :)
All the Hungarian violinists I know have such relaxed and efficient left hands. (Something I need to work on...) It's interesting to watch.
Some have suggested that the particular forms of grammatical complexity in the Hungarian language are partly the explanation--apparently they build all the right brain pathways for creative thinking. (Full disclosure: as I type this, my Hungarian language textbook is sitting forlornly on the top shelf, unopened for months...whooops.) My favorite joke: A prominent scientist goes off to London for a "Genius Conference," a gathering of all the brightest minds in the world. Physicists, chemists, poets, musicians, architects, everything. At the end of the week, he goes home and starts enthusiastically telling his wife all about it. "And there were all these amazing, brilliant people from every corner of the world...it was just astonishing!" when she interrupts "Wait a minute, but if they came from all over the world, how the heck could you all understand each other?" ;-)
I once heard a Hungarian violinist conversing with a Finnish violinist---each in their own languages. There was enough shared between the languages that they could understand what the other was saying. Isn't that interesting?
I was in the audience as my wife was in the chorus for the Brahms Choral works.
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He looks at her blankly. "Why--we all spoke Hungarian, of course!"
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