Primitives
WHAT have the Hungarians got that has not been shown by previous visiting troupes from China. Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, ani. other prodigious exporters of cultural ideas? First. and most remarkably, a system of folk music more individual in technical variety than any other similar system. A troupe of 130 per- formers may seem rather much of a good thing. but this regiment includes male and female dance groups, a female choir, mixed choir, and at least two orchestral groups. The spectacle forms a sort of shorthand, visual pr6cis of all Hungarian culture.
Liszt. Bartok and Koddly figure alongside the company's own conductors as arrangers or composers of some of the items; these include groups of Hungarian folk and Hungarian gypsy airs—two distinct kinds of their popular music. The quality of string playing is high, and the woodwinds are something to go and hear.
The dances, as usual in the surviving folk cultures, give all the extravagance and bravura to the males; females are, clearly, an inferior human kind who are permitted to dance in only limited rhythms and patterns—even their cos- tume is far less resplendent than that of the men.
Most dances are at extreme slowness or high speed; nothing much happens at average pace, and as the 'men yell and halloo while leaping. stamping and clicking heels, there is an extra satisfaction in seeing. this done by dandyish types as bewhiskered as Edwardian toffs.
Of European still-vital cultures, this is the most individual in its kinds of dance and musi- cal expressiveness; all is performed with the right air of recklessness and there are no stage mannerisms, no theatrical tricks, here. The effect is as refreshing as a cool evening breeze after a stifling afternoon.
A. V. COTON
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