humusic1-2, Exercise 1: Two kinds of Hungarian music

Model answer (check the details):

Peasant folk song: sung by village people, often unaccompanied or with simple instruments, tied to weddings, harvests, laments and ballads, with old layers of melody (often pentatonic and free in rhythm). It lived in the countryside and was passed on by ear.

Verbunkos and csardas style: played by professional Roma bands, with violin, cimbalom and bass, in towns, taverns, cafes and ballrooms, for the gentry and the paying public. It was stylised, with a slow section and a fast one, and became the sound of national feeling in the nineteenth century.

Why it matters: Europeans who thought they were hearing Hungarian folk music were mostly hearing the second kind. Bartok and Kodaly later argued that the first kind was the real peasant tradition (check the wording of their argument).