Hungarian Melody
Or
A Study in the Fragility of Human Knowledge and the Ephemeral nature of our Existence.
(With Humble Apologies for the Grandiose Subtitle )
The ‘Hungarian Melody’ is a short piece of music written for the piano by Franz Schubert in 1824 whilst he was working as a Music Tutor to the Count Esterházy's two daughters at their family’s summer home in Zseliz. Schubert later reused the theme of his Hungarian Melody for the finale of his ‘Divertissement on Hungarian Themes,’ which is a much grander work composed for two people sitting at one piano, possibly he had the Esterházy's daughters in mind.
We have a couple of stories that have come down to us concerning the composition of the Hungarian melody, the first is that of Carl Von Schonstein, writing in 1857,
“The theme…is a Hungarian song, which Schubert picked up in Count Esterházy’s kitchen; a Hungarian kitchen-maid was singing it, and Schubert, who was just returning home with me from a walk, heard it as he passed. We listened for a considerable time to the singing; Schubert who had obviously taken a liking to the song, continued humming it to himself for a long time as he went on his way, and, lo and behold!, the next winter it appeared as the theme of the above mentioned Op 54, one of his grandest pianoforte pieces.”
Schonstein is writing of the ‘Op 54, Divertissement on Hungarian Themes’, perhaps he had no knowledge of the little ‘Hungarian Melody’, it could be that at the time nobody knew of it but Schubert. In any case, the story is delightful, Schubert overhearing a Kitchen Maid singing and later turning his memory of the music into a piano piece.
The second account is very similar to the first and appears in Kriessle’s biography of Schubert written in 1864,
“The Divertissement a la Hongroise (Op 54) consists of a series of melodies of a somewhat gloomy character. Schubert got the subject from the kitchen-maid in the Esterházy family, who was humming it as she stood by the fire-place, and Schubert coming home from a walk with Schonstein, heard it as he passed. He kept humming the tune during the rest of the walk, and next winter it appeared as the subject in the Divertissement.”
So we have a piece of music by Schubert that lay unpublished amongst his papers for a hundred years, we have a second much more ambitious piece of music by Schubert published in his own life time that uses the same theme, and we have two accounts of the inspiration for that music written down long after the event. The second account appears to be based on the first adding only the location of the maid within the kitchen, that is ‘by the fire-place.’ We do not know if Kriessle had additional information, if he had questioned Schonstein, or if he was just given to fanciful embellishments.
We do not know for sure that any of the story is true, it is quite possible the Maid singing a Hungarian melody may be a romantic fiction. One can imagine how the friends of Schubert might have wanted to elaborate his story and their part in it, especially as Schubert had died in obscurity and only gradually come to the notice of the world, his friends suddenly finding themselves to be part of a growing Schubert mythology. Also, the mid eighteen hundreds were a time of increased nationalist sentiment so the idea of a folk song expressing a national identity being sung by a peasant and inspiring an artist would have appealed both to those hearing the story and to those repeating – or inventing it.
To my knowledge no one has ever been able to identify the theme with any Hungarian folk song, although this could just mean that it was not a very well-known song. Schubert died in 1828, the two accounts come from 1857 and 1864, so he sadly could not have commented on their veracity; however, we do know that both Schubert and Schonstein were in Zseliz in 1824.
The folk music like characteristics of Schubert’s ‘Hungarian Melody’ do perhaps lend credence to the story. As in some music of the region the snappy dotted rhythm of the opening of Schubert’s Melody places metric stresses on the off beats, and there is a continual alternation between major and minor keys that is also suggestive of folk music, although much of Schubert’s music has this characteristic.
Schubert obviously thought the music sufficiently Hungarian to include it without embarrassment in his later ‘Divertissement on Hungarian Themes.’
There was a long tradition of Viennese composers like Schubert writing what they described as ‘Hungarian’ music. Opinion is divided as to how Hungarian much of this music was. One school of thought insists that Viennese composers mistook Gypsy music for Hungarian folk music, others point out that Gypsy bands played Hungarian music; it is perhaps true to say that the Viennese alla Ongaresa style did take on a life of its own and at times only bore the slightest of relationships to actual Hungarian music. Joseph Haydn, who grew up near Hungary, did actually describe two of his compositions in the Viennese alla Ongaresa style as ‘in the Gypsy style.’ For a British equivalent one might think of English Victorian novelists writing ‘Scottish’ adventure stories. To complicate matters such appropriation and reimagining of local cultures can actually influence the cultures from which they are drawn. All this means it is rather difficult to make definitive statements about the authenticity of the ‘Hungarian Melody’ as Hungarian folk music, the Maid could have heard a Gypsy band playing gypsy music, she could have heard a Gypsy band playing Hungarian music, she could have heard holiday makers from Vienna singing music in the ‘alla Ongaresa’ style, all of which she could have then been singing in the kitchen as she stirred the goulash.
The Allegretto tempo and the subdued dynamics of Schubert’s ‘Hungarian Melody’ make for a gentler dance than the energetic stomping usually expected of wild Hungarian Magyar music. One may think of the quietly poetic major key ending that our Magyar has drifted off into some profound reverie. Could this ending be a musical expression of a memory? A way of Schubert signifying that this music is a memory of an event not the immediate experience of the event, like Wordsworth and his ‘host of golden daffodils’ remembered on his ‘couch’ in ‘vacant or in pensive mood’?
So, anyway, do you think the story is true?
I guess that depends on how trusting or how sceptical you are. Perhaps the most honest response is to be agnostic, persuaded neither by the pleasures of romantic notions or by the acerbic pleasures of scepticism.
There is no definitive evidence and there probably never will be, we have to proceed with reasonable doubt. That is one reason why I am writing about the story, it illustrates some of the limits of what we can know, particularly about history. I once read a church guide book that described the evidence we receive from the past as being like the incomplete shards of broken mirror. I really enjoy working with partial knowledge, rearranging the shards to see what they can be; definitive answers can be such a bore.
The second reason I am writing about this story is because I love the way it illustrates the passing moment. Assuming the story is true, the Maid casually singing overheard by Schubert and his friends, that moment has gone but by both chance and design an impression of it may have come down to us in fragmentary form. Even if the story is not true the ‘Hungarian Melody’ is a memento of Schubert’s time as tutor to the Count’s daughters in Zseliz, and of the subsequent posthumous creation of a Schubert mythology. One might say, as major and minor modes fluctuate in Schubert’s music so mythology and history are caught up in a contradictory and complimentary relationship within an overall sense of key.
So much of our lives is apparently ephemeral and so much of our knowledge is fragile. That is what being human often feels like to me, however I am mainly writing this because I find Schubert’s Hungarian Melody to be such a beautiful and emotionally engaging piece of music. In its short gentle span it seems to open up a very vivid yet insubstantial long past moment of time, as if one is suddenly able to see and feel the long past memories of another soul.
Such a sentiment is I know wholly subjective but I’m not going to let that stop me saying it. It is enough for me to be able to lay aside doubt for a moment as I listen to the music and feel myself in the narrative of the Maid singing in the kitchen.
Even if I had never read of the story of the Kitchen Maid the music would still take me to another place because music has the potential to enable you to dream the dreams of long past souls and of souls you have never known.
Or at least that’s what it feels like to me, have a listen for yourself.
December 2017
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