Lajos Vargyas (1914–2007)

Abstract

One of the most prominent figures of Hungarian ethnomusicology and folklore research, Lajos Vargyas, has left us his oeuvre as a valuable gift for researchers and connoisseurs of folk music and folklore.Born in Budapest, from 1932 to 1937 Vargyas studied Hungarian and German philology at Eotvos Lorand University, and in 1937-38 church music at the Liszt Academy of Music. He attended Zoltan Kodaly's folk music seminar, and this acquaintance, which grew into active collaboration, became decisive throughout his life. The beginnings of Vargyas's career coincided with World War II, the German and Soviet occupations and the consolidation of the totalitarian communist regime. He first worked as an unpaid assistant, then as a librarian at the University Library in Budapest (1941-52). In 1952 he was appointed Head of the Folk Music Department at the Museum of Ethnography, which better suited his ethnomusicological interests. The independent institute of Hungarian folk music research, the Folk Music Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was formed at Kodaly's initiative. In 1961 Vargyas became a senior research member of the Group, and after Kodaly's death its director (1970-1973). In 1974 the Group was merged with the Institute for Musicology where he continued to work as a senior adviser until his retirement in 1981. His organizing activity and human example are still exemplary for generations of younger scholars. On his 90th birthday, his pupils and colleagues published a three-volume Festschrift, Az ido rostajaban [In the sieve of time] (Budapest: L'Harmattan, 2004).Vargyas's scholarly disposition became obvious early. His doctoral dissertation (1941) was a village monograph, the first of its kind in Hungary and maybe also in Europe. Alongside his study written using analytical and anthropological methods and music examples, the entire collection was published sixty years later in Egy felvideki falu zenei vilaga - Aj, 1940. The Musical World of a Hungarian Village - Aj, 1940 (Budapest: Planetas Kiado, 2000, 1121 pp.). In his research methodology, theoretical rigour and musical comparisons covering an immense amount of material were important. His researches into the pre-history of Hungarian folk music based on comparing Hungarian music with the musics of linguistically related peoples further developed the achievements of Bartok and Kodaly. Inferences from recent collections in the Volga region have generated a new conception about a different direction, confirming Kodaly's insights about the Eastern connections of Hungarian folk music. Vargyas's prehistory of Hungarian music is still the most complete summary of the theme ('Protohistoire de la musique hongroise', Studia Musicologica 20 [1978], 3-73).In his works Vargyas approached the folk music and folklore of the Hungarians from two angles. His position can be succinctly epitomized by the title of his studies Keleti hagyomany - nyugati kultura [Eastern tradition - Western culture] (Budapest: Szepirodalmi Kiado, 1984). Since Bartok's researches, the investigation of relations with neighbouring musics has become a time-tested tradition in Hungary. Vargyas went further and discovered that direct contacts could be discerned with the musical culture of more distant Western European nations, e.g. through the late medieval French-Walloon settlers in Hungary: 'Magyar nepdalok francia parhuzamai' [French parallels in Hungarian folk songs] (Neprajzi kozlemenyek 5/3-4 [1960], 3-21) and 'Les analogies hongroises les chants Guillauneu,' (Studia Musicologica 3 [1962], 367-378). …