The largest folk music collection of the turn of the century in the Carpathian Basin was launched 20 years ago in Fonó Music Hall, based on the idea and under the leadership of László Kelemen. From September 1997 on, recordings were being made – with only minor disruptions – one after the other with traditional folk musicians and ensembles still active from the villages of the Carpathian Basin. An interval of about four-five days was available to record the entire repertoire of the individual bands – who served multiple ethnicities –, therefore in addition to collecting the melodies, details about the music, dances and folk traditions could also be recorded. Where possible, the bands were accompanied by a dancer couple and one or two singers, to help explore the vocal and functional relationships of instrumental folk music.
Twenty years ago, the programme was implemented as a result of an unprecedentedly large joint effort: its patron was then president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) dr. Ferenc Glatz, and all cultural ministers – independent of their political views – supported the initiative: Bálint Magyar, József Hámori, Zoltán Rockenbauer and István Hiller. On an expert level, it was supported by the MTA’s Institute for Musicology and the Museum of Ethnography. However, the lion share of the work was done by the then newly established Fonó Music Hall, which allowed it to immediately ensure popularity amongst those who liked folk arts. Several members of the dancehouse movement also joined the collection effort; amongst others: Gergely Agócs, Péter Árendás, Zoltán Juhász, Gergely Koncz, István Németh, István Pávai, Géza Pénzes and András Vravrinecz. The cause of the programme’s success – in addition to the above mentioned – was also that it was a pioneer project: the huge data amounts were immediately recorded on the computer’s hard drive.
The collection was published in the “New Patria” CD series, and with the help of Fonó’s and the Hungarian Heritage House’s databases, it is being made publicly available. The Norwegian Fund’s call for proposals has provided great help in doing so.
At the start of the programme, many people raised the question: why the sad Final Hour title? Twenty years after launching the project, seeing the accelerated dissolution of the village world and peasant communities, we can clearly state that the title was true to reality. Many of the people from who we were able to collect back then are no longer with us, their art is only preserved in the collections.
From Autumn 2017 on, we will start a series, where we recall the collections work of 20 years ago: we will invite those musicians, who took part in the Final Hour project and are still alive, are in good health and are happy to play for us. With this programme series, we wish to bring back the musical treasures recorded and published on CDs 20 years ago and made available in our database to both the general public and the new generation of musicians.