Storyteller Turns Smiles to Laughter - Interview with András Berecz

 

I?ve been tempted to visit Gheorgeni because of the stories. I first heard some nice stories about Uncle Pista the Liar who got his name because he was a famous recounter of tall tales. He was not actually lying, he did not get any advantage from telling stories, but he was a true poet, someone who would roll out his words. Many people advised me to listen to him for my own improvement. So when I made it to Gheorgheni and we did a film about this man with Erika Molnár Karácsony, his talent really impressed me. He is a living braggart who finds this world too restrictive and boring and so he returns from a lost battle saying he has won, he can make jokes about grief and he can lift himself up by his own hair when he is above a chasm. Then I heard about Jóska Barát from Anna Szabó. He was famous during the 1950s, the time of nationalisation, because he could fool the holders of powers in a way that makes his village still thankful. So first of all, I was collecting tales and legends in Gheorgeni, and in the meantime, I started wondering what local folk songs sounded like. I found the answer on Bartók?s phonograph cylinders from 1907, Kodály?s from 1910 and Antal Molnár?s from 1911.

 

Yes, they are out on the internet. It?s of course not easy to get the tunes out because there are so many crackles. Sometimes it sounds as if oil was burning in the foreground, or if a train was rattling. And someone in the distance is singing a song, but you need time to really hear it. But if you have the score or lyrics that can help.

 

 

The discovery of the pentatonic songs of the Szeklers in Gheorgheni was a turning point in Hungarian music history. These Szekler folk songs showed a new way, a new home to Hungarian composers who were under strong foreign influence. A new and individual sound, they actually found their own sound in these tunes. That?s why Kodály called this rather archaic ?new sound? the ?indisputable Miraculous Deer of Hungarians? or the ?musical sprout that links to the origins of Hungarians.? After discovering its existence, he also celebrated our survival because as he said ?this musical sprout ? proves better than any blood analysis that the Hungarian nation still exists.?

 

 

I hope so. Small audiences are good but big ones are also great. When many people come together, their smiles turn into laughter and laughter brings joy. A big audience will be braver and have more intensity. It?s best if they sit close to each other because if the gaps are too big, it freezes a man?s soul. It?s not worth singing along when the house is half empty. When many mouths move to smile, you can really hear that. What?s more, even a chamber orchestra sounds good in the Palace of Arts. Even a single violin, a lone cimbalom, a gardon or percussive cello, or at times a single flute. Contemporary ears indeed miss that: hearing the bare ancient forms without the veneer. The disadvantage turns into an advantage, because audiences experience a discovery, as if we could start discovering ourselves from the beginning again and again.

 

 

There is also a photo album. Partly because it would have been a waste to leave out those nice photographs taken in Gheorgheni in the 1890s. Also, because CDs are in decline, you can only flee the trend and make an album attractive, like a book that?s good to hold. The music and the photographs together can create new, quality content. Graphic artist István Csáki from Miercurea Ciuc contributed nice engravings to the package. His engravings show how the Szeklers of Gheorgheni ?excel in cheerful carving and trimming tricks.? Balázs Orbán has described the local woodcarvings this way.

 

 

There will be plenty of jokes and stories at the concert. I like it when the two enhance each other. It?s good to express joy in different ways. There will be some dancing, too. Tamás Farkas and his partner will be there and they will demonstrate the Szekler dances of Gheorgheni. That?s not a small thing considering that as far as I know, they are the only ones there who collect these dances. These days, if you happen to ask for a dance from Gheorgheni at a folk dance house concert, the musicians will have no idea what to play.

 

 

I never collected thinking I should use the material for anything special, just simply followed my instincts. I was really interested. I was starving for them and I still am. After exchanging just a few words with some of the old people In Transylvania and Moldova, they would invite me to in their house, without asking how long I wanted to stay. They would fill up my brains, my recorder and my bag. I could give nothing else to express my thanks but cogs, baking powder, perfumed Amo soaps and a show of admiration. I would spend days talking and singing with old and lonely people to whom nobody cared to listen. Many of them would normally have no other companion but the bare walls, a cat or a radio. Our joy was the same as it is today: I enjoyed listening and they enjoyed reciting. Me too. I sing folk songs and tell tales because I enjoy them and they are all I can give. I have spent the better part of my life this way. It is first of all a good experience for me. And it?s only an ?added bonus? that while telling tales and singing songs, I can demonstrate some forgotten turns of phrase, some tangible, lively and powerful words. And people like them, because they feel that these words concern them and also belong to them. What I sing and talk about belongs not only to me but also to them. Like the new scented pine railing in the church staircase: many hands touch it each week and within a few years, it will look like amber. Tales and folk songs also work that way. They shine because millions and millions have tried them, chiselled them, and adapted them to their own fate. The ideas remain true because the only parts that survive are the ones that audiences can identify with. Whatever you find in these tales and songs you will also find in the people. And what you don?t find, you will not find in people, either.

 

 

I?ve been invited to a festival of European wine-drinking songs several times and at around the tenth invitation, they said this time I should sing beer-drinking songs. I said OK, even though I do not know any beer-drinking songs in the Hungarian tradition. But I remembered I had a collection of such songs by a related ethnic group, the Chuvash, so I could sing a translation of these. Ferenc Buda had no time but he encouraged me to do it. I had some raw translations and I spent the next four years just working on these. As it turned out, this nation of 1.5 million people had a genre that is unknown anywhere else in the world: beer-poetry praising your relatives. Brothers or sisters who have fallen out with each other will be brought back together with the help of songs. They have uncountable similes to describe why you are strong if you can sit down at the table with you brother. These unusual songs work well because you really need to work hard to attract people?s attention these days. You must put a worm on the hook. Even if you bring something nice and good, if you say it quietly, nobody will listen. Something harsh and interesting is necessary, even the beer is only a decorative button, a pleasant ornament on the work.

 

 

I don?t know yet. I want to travel around a bit and then withdraw to a hut.

 

 

Only one? That?s impossible. I always have ten new ones that I most enjoy spinning around. The ten would definitely include the story of green Peter with a red and white face who finds love after helping out the eagle with broken wings, the catfish in the mud and the broken rose. Another favourite of mine is about János who goes around pubs carrying a bag full of angels and he has no home because he is admitted neither to heaven nor in hell. Also, a legend about dear Jóska Barát from Gheorgheni and how he made fun of the ?agitator comrades.? Well, I would somehow find a way to hide all those tales and smuggle them onto your island.

 

 

I?ve tried to count but I could not. There are many that I?ve stopped telling and some that I have combined with each other.

 

 

Because I?ve grown tired of them and I felt like a parrot telling these. There are some that I restart after a while. And there are others that I need help to recite or I make new versions of them because I cannot remember the original. But I can still also get a grab on new tales and I can keep my programme fresh. I will carry on as long as my tongue and good spirits keep up. These are the gifts I once received but they can be taken away ? my sound can disappear and I can grow bitter. And then I will have to stop, because one must be cheerful for stories.

 

Interviewer: Melinda Serfőző / Photo: Bence Kovács