44th National Táncház Festival & Fair • 4–6 April 2025
Issue:
Starting page: 39
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Halmos Béla (1946 –2013 Hungarian folk musician (lead violin), folk music researcher, violin teacher) Halmos met Martin György when he and Sebő Ferenc were referred to Martin in 1969-70 when they wanted to hear recordings of authentic folk music. At the time there was no access to archives unless a person was an ethnomusicologist and neither Sebő nor Halmos were ethnologists yet. They went to Martin’s home and within minutes they were listening to the music they’d been looking for. “From then on Martin was the one who guided our lives and not from behind the scenes…He very consciously guided us not just professionally, but as a human beings and friends. Martin always documented the dance music along with the dance. They were functional recordings done while the musicians were actually playing for dance…long passages, complete weddings, or balls.” Martin took Halmos and Sebő to meet Timár Sándor director of the Bartók Ensemble and they began to play music for the group. It was Martin who suggested that Béla apply for a degree in ethnomusicology and that he should concentrate on a fiddler from the Transylvanian village of Szék. “I place Martin next to Bartók, he was the same kind of theoretical and research person, his intellect, mode of thought, and world view was the same.”