The Garden of Love

We have all heard about the eastern roots of Hungarian folk song and folk music, about its tradition that spans generations, and about its importance in the everyday life of the peasantry. Yet we rarely consider how many centuries old this tradition is, whether certain melodies have their roots in the Baroque or Renaissance periods, or even in Gregorian chant. Moreover, as folk songs are spread by word of mouth, it often never occurs to us that some of the songs we know today – even as variants – are preserved in period codices, manuscript hymnals, melodiacs, graduals, songbooks, or even hymnbooks. It is true that in this case the links do not lead eastwards beyond the Hungarian language area as a whole, but mostly to other countries in Europe. The first part of Szilvia Bognár's series of folk music lectures will focus on folk love lyrics and flower songs in an interactive programme including song learning.