The Music of Hungary in the 17th Century

During the 17^th century, Hungary was divided into three units, one is the region of Transylvania, one controlled by the Turks, and another by the Habsburg. Historic songs changed in fame, replaced by lyrical poetry. Minstrels were taken over by the courtly artists, who played the trumpet and whistle, or cimbalom, violin or bagpipes; several courts and households had large orchestras of instrumentals. Some of these artists were German, French, Polish or Italian and even included a Spanish guitarist at the court of Gabor Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania.

Instrumental music during the 17^th century is known from the collections of different upper Hungarian and Transylvania collectors like Janos Kajoni collected the Kajoni Codex, Organp Missale, Cantionale Catholicum and the Sacri Concetus. The collectors of the Vietorisz Codex, whose identities are unknown and another anonymous collector from Locse also published the first instance of autonomous established virginal music, equally followed in style, melodic texture and method of adaption, these songs were featured by the flexible, finely shaded melodies, a trend to make wider and looser forms, and a gradual independent of the forma (sic) principles of song melodies toward a clearly instrumental beginning. At the same time, the rhythm became more difficult. The Locse book also notably presents an arrangement of dance, the first instance of the Hungarian cyclic verbunkos pattern.

Also in the 17^th century the Hungarian church music was restored after the 1651 publication of the Cantus catholic, in which genuine Hungarian motives played a major part. By 1674, the Hungarian mass was also part of the Cantus Catholic, accompanied by the adoption of Calvinist psalm tunes in 1693 and Hungarian choral music in the year 1695. Janos Kajoni Organo Missale of 1667 was the first experiment in the production of a new type of Hungarian church music, a style that strung together short motives that were shortened, extended or syncopated in a difficult rhythmic structure. Italian religious music played a significant impact in this development, which was documented in an unparalleled instance of olden Hungarian music, the Harmonia Caelestis of Prince Pal Eszterhazy, who tried to make a different Hungarian pattern of church music using influences from the opera, oratio literature, the German music of Johann Kaspar von Kerll and Johann Schmeltzer, and the oratorio and cantata patterns. Eszterhazy’s effort did not last, as following, the century saw an influx of music form of the Western Europe under the Habsurgs.

Around the beginning of the 18^th century, though the last national uprising of the time occurred, leading the spread of Kuruc songs, these songs were authentically Hungarian and hold a central position between the pattern of the olden and the new traditional music. Their influences include elements of Polish, Slovak, Romanian and Ukrainian music in addition to Hungarian melodies.