Esti Dal

Title: Esti dal
Performer: Erika Miklosa
Culture: Hungarian Folk song collected by Zoltán Kodály.
Instrumentation: A violin and a female singer

The reading this week focused on the oral/aural tradition of passing on music, so I picked a song from a culture that utilized the tradition. The song is a quiet Hungarian folk song collected and arranged by the pedagogue and composer Zoltán Kodály. Just a little background the translation of the piece is as follows.

Evening darkness overtook me near the woods;
 I have put my coat under my head (i.e. as a pillow),
 I have put my hands together
 To pray to the Lord, like this:

 Oh, my Lord, give me a place to sleep,
 I am weary with wandering,
 With walking around and hiding,
 With living on foreign land.

 May Lord give me a good night,
 May he send me a holy angel,
 May he encourage our hearts' dreams,
 May he give us a good night.

It is a prayer of a weary traveler asking for a permanent place to lay his head. This is a theme that is 

common among traditional Hungarian songs as they are a country that have been under the rule of other people for centuries. The tour choir sang this when we went to Hungarian and our conductor (who is 

Hungarian) told us all of this before we performed this. These folk songs have a deep meaning to the 

people there and they were touched that we performed them.

The "problem" of an oral/aural traditions is the variants that occur between generation. As each 

generation passes down the song there can be little changes that are made between songs, done either 

purposely or accidentally. I think of this in relation to on of the previous readings we did that spoke 

about authenticity. A few of the ideas mentioned in the article suggested that authenticity is a concept 

resting on the premise that music is static, which most of us realize is not true. The little changes 

between generations prove this. Music changes as each person performs/teaches it. We all have 

different interpretations and different ways of performing a piece. I think of music as almost a living 

organism, that grows and flourishes as time progresses.

For those of you that want to hear the choral arrangement, here is a great recording of The King's 

Singers singing it.