Music, Audio and Video Materials

Bain News Service. *Sari Petrass*. Hungarian operetta actress and singer Sári Petráss (1888-1930). Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division.

The Library of Congress has over 20 centers that provide research space and guidance for users to interact with collection items based on subject or format. The Hungarian American collections contain material in varying formats such as books, photographs, manuscripts, audio and video items. Access to these collection items, if not digitized, and research assistance is available through the Moving Image Research Center. The Performing Arts Reading Room (part of the Library's Music Division) provides access to classified music and book collections, music and literary manuscripts, iconography, microforms, periodicals, musical instruments, published and unpublished copyright deposits, and close to 500 special collections in music, theater, and dance. To hear recordings or interact with audio materials in the Library's collections visit the Recorded Sound Research Center which is part of the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

The Library of Congress holds an array of recordings relevant to the study of Hungarian American populations in the United States. The creativity of members of the diaspora community spans genres from folk songs and folk dancing to feature films and recorded interviews.

In addition, the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served during conflicts and on peacekeeping missions, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service. Part of this collection tells the story of Hungarian American experience in the U.S: military.

To begin exploring the materials in the Library's collections see descriptions and links to selected materials held in several different reading rooms such as the American Folklife Center, the Moving Image Research Center and the Recorded Sound Research Center.

In addition to materials that must be used onsite, the Library of Congress has also made many recordings and music scores freely available on its website. Links are provided to free materials as well as to bibliographic records in the Library of Congress Online Catalog for onsite-only materials.

Select the title of any recording listed below to view fuller bibliographic information for that item in the Library of Congress Online Catalog or the website. If a collection has some digital content, links are provided. To find additional materials also try using the search box located at the upper right of the Library of Congress home page and limit to Audio recordings.

English with an accent
Call Number: 1LP 01318

Published/Created: 1974

Summary: Using recordings of people talking "off the cuff," gives examples of the ways in which people from many parts of the world speak English. Useful to actors and drama schools and to anyone who savors colorful speech.
Request in advance in Rec Sound Res Center
Content includes Hungarian.
(Madison, LM113).
Ethnic broadcasting in America collection [sound recording]
Call Number: AFC 1981/018

Published/Created: 1977-1981

Survey of ethnic radio broadcasts recorded for the Ethnic Broadcasting in America Project of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Recorded mostly off the air.
The radio broadcasts include contemporary, popular, and folk music; community news and announcements; advertising; comedy; news; sports; politics; paid political ads; and religious broadcasts, with hymns, gospel music, sermons, church services, and masses.
Sound recordings from ethnic broadcasts include Hungarian.
Documentation about the sound recordings is available in the Folklife Reading Room, Library of Congress.
Èletfa Ensemble, Hungarian folkdance music from Transylvania
Call Number: RYB 6039

1 sound cassette : analog + 1 sheet.
Recorded: in New Jersey, Feb. 1990.
Request in advance in Rec Sound Res Center (Madison, LM113)
Az évfolyam by Erich Segal.
Hungarian translation of the The Class.
Talking Book available through the National Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.
7 sound cassettes
This novel explores the lives of five Harvard students from the famous class of '58. A drama of personal conflict and intrigue as the characters are dragged into the political arena of the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israeli conflict. - Provided by publisher.
One of the characters is a Hungarian who left Budapest after the 1956 revolution and became US Deputy Secretary of State.
Hetvegi Magyar Iskola es Ovoda Hungarian Saturday Classes and Kindergarten, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Interviews by Nagy, Susan Mary (Research team member) Basa, Peter (Photographer)
Published/Created: 1982

15 audio recordings, from a total of 28 collection items.
Available online.
Hungarian folk music in the United States
Call Number: Folkways FE 4020

Published/Created: New York, 1983

Recordings made by László Kürti.
1 sound disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm ; 12 in.
Program notes with vocal text in English and Hungarian (6 p. : ill., music) inserted in container.
Principally recorded 1976-1982 in various locations.
Request in advance in Rec Sound Res Center (Madison, LM113)
Immortal film music of Miklós Rózsa. Motion picture music. Selections by Miklós Rózsa
Call Number: 1LP 08610

Published/Created: 1984

1 audio disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo
Performer: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra ; Miklós Rózsa, conductor.
Contents: Young Bess : suite -- Lust for life : suite -- Lady Hamilton. Love theme -- The asphalt jungle. Prologue : The drama begins ; Epilogue : The drama ends -- The thief of Baghdad : a short suite -- Lydia. Love theme and waltz -- The killers. Prelude -- A time to love and a time to die. Love scene -- The lost weekend. The walk along Third Avenue.
Request in advance in Rec Sound Res Center (Madison, LM113)
Medicine: cure or control
Call Number: RSS cass 11288

Published/Created: 1973

Thomas Szasz was a psychiatrist and social critic who challenged the psychiatric establishment in the 1960s regarding its foundational notions around normalcy, mental illness and treatment.
Request in advance in Rec Sound Res Center (Madison, LM113)
Segeny Magyar hazam = Poor old Hungary
Call Number: AFC 1940/001: AFS 4269 A1

Published/Created: 1939

Links
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc1940001.afc1940001_a4269a1
Alternate title: Szegény Magyar hazám
Inscribed on dust jacket by Sidney Robertson Cowell: "The emigrant looks back at Hungary's troubles since the Partition. A 'contemporary song'."
Forms part of a group of field materials documenting Mary Gaidos performing Hungarian songs with friends at a New Year's Eve party on December 31, 1939, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Oakland, California.
In Hungarian.
Stephen Erdely recordings of Hungarian American songs
Published/Created: 1984, 1961.

Former title: Folksinging of the American Hungarians
Summary
Collection of field recordings of Hungarian folk and popular songs performed by members of the Hungarian American Singing Society in Cleveland, Ohio, and others, including a Girl Scout group, recorded by Stephen Erdely from 1961-1965. Includes interviews about Hungarian wedding customs and other topics, and children's songs. The collection includes one-half linear inch of correspondence, lists, and logs. Correspondence from Stephen Erdely includes mention of his research with Linda Dégh.
W.P.A California Folk Music Project collection, 1936-1991
Call Number: AFC 1940/001

2883 items.
manuscripts 115 folders.
7 boxes 4.5 linear feet.
239 sound discs (35 hours) : analog, 78 rpm, mono. ; 12 in.
170 photographic prints : black and white ; various sizes.
24 drawings.
A substantial portion of the collection, with interpretive essays, is available as "California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties," an American Memory online resource compiled by the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress.
Finding aid: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af016001
Online presentation: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/collafc.af000002

Select the title of any film listed below to view fuller bibliographic information for that item in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Some of the films listed below are restricted to onsite only use at the Library of Congress. For those that are freely available online, links are provided.

1995 Neptune Plaza Concert Series collection, 1995
Call Number: AFC 1995/001

Manuscripts: 14 folders.
Sound recordings: 5 sound cassettes (DAT) : digital.
Graphic materials circa 330 photographs : color, black and white.
Moving images 6 videocassettes (Hi-8)
Moving images 2 videocassettes (VHS)
Finding aid: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af011002
Summary: Documentation of the monthly 1995 Neptune Plaza Concert Series, which consists of manuscript materials, sound recordings, photographs, and moving images of performances of zydeco music, lindy hop, bluegrass music, Hungarian folk dance and music, gospel music, and Argentine tango recorded live outdoors on Neptune Plaza in front of the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress from April through September 1995, sponsored by the American Folklife Center and the National Council for the Traditional Arts.

The American forum. Should we revise our immigration laws? / NBC Television presents by Granik, Theodore ( producer and founder)
Published/Created: 1957-02-10.

Summary: This series presents discussions of national and international topics with authoritative leaders who provide opposing views. The guests are Rep. Francis E. Walter, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York. Regarding the thousands of Hungarian refugees seeking security in other lands and the proposal of President Eisenhower for revising immigration laws, Walter, co-author of the Walter-McCarran Act, thinks Eisenhower's proposal to increase the number of immigrants to the U.S. is not in the best interests of the country. He thinks that they cannot be adequately absorbed. Javits thinks the proposals are fair and moderate. He states that Puerto Ricans in New York take jobs others do not.
Biography. The Gabors : fame, fortune and romance
Call Number: DVA 5041

Published/Created: 2000

Episode Detail: The Gabors - Biography The three Gabor sisters (Magda, Zsa Zsa, Eva) and their mother (Jolie) are profiled, from their roots in Budapest, Hungary, to their successes and marriages in Hollywood.
Produced by ABC News Productions. Part of the Copyright Collection.
Request in the Moving Image Research Center. By Appointment (Madison LM336)

No subtitles necessary : Laszlo and Vilmos
Call Number: CGE 7290-7295 (viewing print)

Published/Created: 2008

Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond were two of the best and most influential cinematographers working in Hollywood in the Sixties and Seventies; between them, they worked with the likes of Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Brian DePalma, John Boorman, Peter Bogdanovich, Hal Ashby, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Paul Mazursky, helping shape the look of some of the most vital films of the decade and showing new ways to balance beauty and realism on screen. Surprisingly, these two master cameramen were not professional rivals, but close friends who came to the United States in 1957, fleeing their native Hungary after Soviet troops rolled into the country to put down a people's revolution (which the young cinematographers helped document with newsreel cameras). After cutting their teeth in the United States shooting a variety of low-budget projects, Kovacs enjoyed a commercial breakthrough when he shot Easy Rider in 1969, and Zsigmond made his name a few years later with McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Deliverance; the two remained close friends and colleagues, and Zsigmond remains active today, while Kovacs stayed in the film business up until his death in 2007. No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo and Vilmos is a documentary which explores the professional and personal lives of these two gifted craftsmen, created with their cooperation; it features interviews with a number of their friends and collaborators, including Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bob Rafelson, Karen Black, Sharon Stone, Haskell Wexler and Tatum O'Neal. - From Allmovie.com, January 30, 2020.

Jewish cooking in America by with Joan Nathan. Catskill memories / a national co-production of Maryland Public Television
Call Number: VAI 9177 (viewing copy)

Published/Created: United States : PBS, 2002

viewing copy. 1 videocassette of 1 (VHS) (ca. 30 min.)
Host: Joan Nathan.
Guest: Eva Young.
Eva Young survived three concentration camps and a death march before settling first in Israel and finally New York after the war. She took up cooking as a way to relax in the middle of the night after spending a full day as a jewelry buyer in Manhattan and later as a single mother to her two children. Now retired, Eva and her second husband Julius split their time between New York, Florida and a summer bungalow colony in the Catskills. In her tiny Catskill kitchen, Eva prepares a meal of chicken paprikash and spaetzel. She and Julius invite some of their bungalow neighbors, many of them also Holocaust survivors for dinner and an evening of remembrance.
Request in the Moving Image Research Center By Appointment (Madison LM336)
A ship comes in
Call Number: FCA 5568-5569 (r

Published/Created: 1928

Summary: The Pleznik family arrives in the U.S. from Hungary. They encounter a disaffected fellow Hungarian, Sokol, who ominously warns them about trusting the American government. The father, Peter, dismisses him since he is already a staunch believer in the U.S. He becomes fast friends with their neighbor, Dan, who gets him a job as a janitor at the Federal Building. Peter learns from Judge Gresham about the process of becoming a citizen. Five years later, he passes the citizenship test. Their son, Eric, caught up in World War I fever, joins the army. Mama Pleznik bakes a cake for Judge Gresham, but Sokol replaces it with a bomb. Peter is imprisoned for trying to kill the Judge. Eric is killed in the war. Sokol, wracked with guilt, confesses and Peter is reunited with his family.
Request in the Moving Image Research Center By Appointment (Madison LM336)
WPA California Folk Music Collection
Transcript available.
Juan Felipe Herrera visits the American Folklife Center and discusses the WPA California Folk Music Project Collection with curator Cathy Kerst. View the webcast, read the Poet Laureate’s poem response, and learn more about the collection from the curator.
The California Folk Music Project provides an excellent opportunity to survey the traditional music being performed and enjoyed by numerous and diverse communities of people in 1930s California. It also gives us a glimpse of the ethnographic style and character of an energetic and capable woman folk music collector who, through the existence of the WPA, had the opportunity to take charge of and carry out an ambitious folk music collecting project. Cowell's successes in the California Folk Music Project fit well with the New Deal dynamism and creativity that generated similar cooperative efforts meant to document and validate the lives of exemplary, yet so often unsung Americans.
Cowell was eager to record the kinds of folk music being performed in homes and other venues in California that had not received much attention. Among other things, she wanted to explore ethnic as well as English-language musical traditions.
One third of the recordings represented English-language material, and the other two thirds, the music of numerous ethnic groups, primarily European, including Armenian, Basque, Croatian, Finnish, Gaelic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian (including Sicilian), Norwegian, Russian Molokan, Scottish, and Spanish. There was music of Portuguese from the Azores, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Spanish-speaking settlers whose forefathers had come to California beginning in the 1600s. In addition, 168 photographs of the musicians and their instruments were made, and field documentation of many kinds and textures was gathered. It was an elaborately-conceived project.

Scroll the list below for selected music scores related to Hungarian American communities in the United States. Titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Online Catalog.

Album leaf; In Hungarian style by Julius von Beliczay
Published/Created: Boston, 1885

Notated music score.
Available online.
Csardas; Hungarian dance for piano by Geza, K. Döme
Published/Created: Cincinnati, 1883

Related item: Music for the nation : American sheet music (DLC) 98703496
Available online.
Daloló öregamerikások by Tóth-Kurucz, Mária
Call Number: ML3560.H8 T7 1976

Published/Created: Cleveland, 1976

[Singing oldtimer Hungarian Americans]
Folk songs of Hungarian Americans, history and criticism, includes songs.
Language(s): Hungarian.
Summary in English.
Élő örökségünk = Living heritage : Arpadhon (Albany), Louisiana Hungarian folk songs and dances
Call Number: M1668.9.H8 E5 1979

Published/Created: Lafayette, LA. 1979

music compiled by V. Maxine Miller Witcher ; words compiled by Anna Kovach Arceneaux.
Principally for voice and piano.
Request in the Performing Arts Reading Room (Madison, LM113)
Genrl. Bem's Hungarian galop, op. 87, no. 2 by Viereck, J. C.
Call Number: M1.A12 I Vol. 27 Case

Published/Created: Philadelphia, 1849

Galops.
Piano music.
In bound volumes: Instrumental sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860.
Available online.
The Hungarian exile by Ernst Szemelényi (music), Mrs Phelps (words)
Call Number: M1.A12 V Vol. 41 Case

Published/Created: Baltimore, 1850

Heading: songs with piano.
In bound volumes: Vocal sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860.
Available online.
Hungarian patriot's quick step by Mathias Keller (composer)
Call Number: M1.A12 I Vol. 29 Case

Published/Created: Philadelphia, 1849

Respectfully dedicated to General Arthur Görgey
In bound volumes: Instrumental sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860
Available online.
Hungarian quadrilles by Scherpf, John C. arranger
Call Number: M1.A12 I

Published/Created: New York, 1851

Piano music.
In bound volumes: Instrumental sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860
The Hungarian waltz : as danced in the admired ballet of Love among the roses
Call Number: M1.A1 Box 31

Published/Created: Boston, [between 1820 and 1825]

Waltzes.
Piano music.
Available online.
Kossuth's farewell, Oh Hungary my native land : Songs and Chorus by Wilhem Fischer
Call Number: M1.A12 Z Vol. 24 Case

Published/Created: Philadelphia, 1851

Songs with piano.
In bound volumes: Additional instrumental and vocal sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860.
Available online.
Kossuth's grand Hungarian national march by Szemelenyi, E. (arranger)
Call Number: M1.A12 Z Vol. 4 Case

Published/Created: Baltimore, 1849

Piano music.
In bound volumes: Additional instrumental and vocal sheet music registered in the U.S. District courts for copyright purposes, 1820-1860.
Available online.
Ragtime jubilee : 42 piano gems, 1911-21
Call Number: M21 .R2176

Published/Created: Mineola, NY. 1997

Piano music.
Content includes: Hungarian rag
Treasury of old-time tunes, filled with distinctively energetic and syncopated rhythms, includes "Angel Food," "Pork and Beans," "Tiddle-De-Winks," "Blue Moon," "The Foot Warmer," 37 other musical gems. Fun to play and hear, these songs are reprinted from rare music sheets, complete with original covers. - Provided by publisher.
Six Hungarian folk songs by F. Korbay (English version and adaptation from the original)
Published/Created: New Zork, 1883

No. 1. Szomorú fűz ága
No. 2. Jaj be fényes csillag ragyog az égen
No. 3. Te vagy te vagy barna kis lány
No. 4. Piros, piros, piros
No. 5. Rózsabokorban jöttem a világra
No. 6. Hallod e rózsám, hallod e?
Available online.

The Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served from World War I through more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service. Below is a list of interviews with Hungarian Americans about their military service.

Andrew George Aronfy Collection
War or Conflict: Cold War
Branch of Service: Army
Location of Service: Fort Polk, Louisiana
Highest Rank: Captain
Dates of Service: 1961-1963
Gabriel Francis Horchler Collection
War or Conflict: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 2nd Battalion, 39th Regiment, 9th Infantry Division
Location of Service: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Vietnam; Hawaii
Highest Rank: Sergeant
George Csehi Collection
War or Conflict: Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Korean War, 1950-1953
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 101st Airborne Division; 7th Infantry Division
Location of Service: Virginia; Florida; Vietnam; New Jersey; North Carolina; Korea
Highest Rank: Chief Warrant Officer 3
George I. Balas Collection
War or Conflict: Cold War; Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Branch of Service: Navy
Service Unit/Ship: Medical Corps
Served as a flight surgeon and Anesthesiologist. During World War II, he was part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Hungary. In the post-war period, he worked as an interpreter for the 63rd Signal Battalion, US Army.
George Robert Konig Collection
Veterans History Project Service Summary:
War or Conflict: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 169th Signal Battalion, 173rd Airborne
Location of Service: Saigon and Bien Hoa, Vietnam
Highest Rank: First Lieutenant
John Joseph Koleszar Collection
War or Conflict: World War, 1939-1945
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: Company C, 9th Armored Division
Location of Service: England; France; Belgium; Luxembourg; Czechoslovakia; Hungary; Germany; European Theater
Highest Rank: Private First Class
Joseph L. Hegedus Collection
War or Conflict: Cold War
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: Mortar Battery, 28th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battle Group, 1st Infantry Division
Location of Service: Fort Riley, Kansas; Munich, Germany
Julius Szabo Collection
Service History: World War, 1939-1945
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: Company C, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division
Location of Service: Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Ohio; Camp Kilmer, New Jersey; Scotland; England; Omaha Beach, France; European Theater
Highest Rank: Staff Sergeant
Leslie L. Megyeri Collection
War or Conflict: Cold War
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 82nd Airborne Division; Company B, 163rd Military Police Battalion, District of Columbia Army National Guard
Location of Service: Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Fort Gordon, Georgia
Highest Rank: Lieutenant Colonel
Nicholas Czunas Collection
War or Conflict: Cold War
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 7th Infantry Division
Location of Service: Korea; Fort Hood, Texas
Highest Rank: Private First Class
Otto N. Feher Collection
Service History: World War, 1939-1945
Service Unit/Ship: Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Location of Service: Colorado; Africa; Italy; Yugoslavia
Highest Rank: Corporal
Entrance into Service: Drafted
Service History Note: The veteran spoke Hungarian and was chosen for OSS on this basis.
Stephen Andrew Borbas Collection
War or Conflict: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Branch of Service: Army
Location of Service: Fort Dix, New Jersey; Korea; Italy
Highest Rank: Specialist Five
Steve M. Hegedus Collection
War or Conflict: World War, 1939-1945
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 511th Parachute Infantry, 11th Airborne Division
Location of Service: New Guinea; Philippines
Highest Rank: Staff Sergeant
Tibor Bierbaum Collection
War or Conflict: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Branch of Service: Army
Service Unit/Ship: 5th Special Forces; 1st Cavalry Regiment and 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division
Location of Service: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Chaffee, Arkansas; Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Devens, Massachusetts; Korea; Germany
Highest Rank: Major

Scroll the list below for selected books and studies related to Hungarian American communities in the United States. Titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Online Catalog.

The list below includes articles about films depicting Hungarian Americans.

America in Hungarian Folk Tradition by Béla Gunda
Published/Created: 1970

This paper wishes to call attention to the fact that on account of emigration and remigration, as well as the economic and social features of America, there is a specific layer of Hungarian folklore characterized by various American motifs. - From the paper.
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 83, No. 330 (Oct. - Dec., 1970), pp. 406-416
The American-Hungarian Folk-Song by Helen Ware
Published/Created: 1916

There are a number of songs which furnish fascinating study to those who can appreciate the new words and phrases coined by the Hungarian immigrant, but in translating them even into prose, all of that which gives them their peculiar charm is lost. They sing songs of despair and gloom, expressing their sorrows and disappointments, and yet most of the Hungarian- American immigrants become eternal wanderers, for after a long sojourn in America they never feel satisfied with conditions in the old country. If the old folks do succeed in making peace with conditions at home, it is certain that their American-born children will soon compel them to pack and return to the United States. Their pathetic fate is touchingly portrayed in songs telling these sad tales. - From the article.
The Musical Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1916): 434–41.
American folk music, compiled by Annabel Morris Buchanan
Call Number: ML120.U5 B8

Published/Created: Ithaca, NY. 1939

Bibliography of folk songs collected in the U.S.
Native folk music found in America, including Anglo-American (English, Scotch, Irish) Indian, Negro, Creole, Canadian, Mexican and Spanish-American, and a small amount from German, Norwegian, Hungarian and Portuguese sources. Sacred and secular forms presented in songs, tunes, bibliography, collections, choral and instrumental settings, American compositions based on native traditional material with old-world forms for comparison. For National Federation of Music Clubs.
Reproduced from type-written copy.
Elindultunk idegenbe; amerikai magyar munkásdalok by Mária Gy. Körmendy
Call Number: M1706.K77 E4

Published/Created: Budapest, 1965

[We went to a foreign land : American Hungarian work songs]
Folk songs of the working class, collected in the United States.
Escaping Extermination by Agi Jambor; Frances Pinter (editor)
Call Number: ML417.J317 A3 2020

ISBN: 9781557539847

Published/Created: 2020

Written shortly after the close of World War II, Escaping Extermination tells the poignant story of war, survival, and rebirth for a young, already acclaimed, Jewish Hungarian concert pianist, Agi Jambor. Agi Jambor describes how she and her husband escaped the extermination of Hungary's Jews through a combination of luck and wit. As a child prodigy studying with the great musicians of Budapest and Berlin before the war, Agi played piano duets with Albert Einstein and won a prize in the 1937 International Chopin Piano Competition. Unpublished until now but written in the immediacy of the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, Escaping Extermination is a story of hope, resilience, and even humor in the fight against evil. - provided by publisher
Gypsy Violins : Hungarian-Slovak Gypsies in America by Steve Piskor
Call Number: DX201 .P575

ISBN: 0578099896

Published/Created: 2012

The book is a documented history of Hungarian-Slovak Gypsies that came to America over 120 years ago, they brought to America the traditional Hungarian Gypsy music they and their ancestors played in Europe for hundreds of years. They are directly linked to Europe's finest Gypsy musicians. From the villages of Hungary, this music was brought to America to make our hearts sing. It is part of world roots music. Piskor tells us, using words and striking photographs, the inside story about his Gypsy family and friends, and warns us of cultural treasures we may be losing. - by Professor Steve Balkin, Roosevelt University
Hungarian Americans by Klára Tóth
Published/Created: 2010

There were two documentary films at the forty-first Hungarian Film Festival in February 2010 that dealt with Hungarian Americans. Hunky blues – The American Dream by Péter Forgács, which portrays the great wave of immigration to the United States between 1890 and 1921. The director uses a multitude of early film clips, photographs, and interviews, adding thereby a new dimension and greater quality. He primarily uses the collection of the ethnographer Elemér Bakó. The documentaries are poignant; he quotes the famous lines from Attila József about a million and a half of our people sleepwalking into America. The film not only shows the promised land, but portrays also the conditions at home alongside the tense feelings of the immigrants. Interpellations in the parliament can be heard, for example, as early as 1903, and the reason for the large scale emigration is attributed to lost patriotism. 1.2 million people emigrated to the United States from the whole Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in the years leading up to 1913, including half a million Hungarians. Did they step into the unknown because they felt hopeless at home? This is a question which the film sets out to answer.
Hungarian Review I/2010 pp. 80-82.
A wayfaring stranger : Ernst von Dohnányi's American years, 1949-1960 by Veronika Kusz (author), Brian McLean (translator)
Call Number: ML410.D693 K8713

ISBN: 9780520301832

Published/Created: Oakland, CA. 2020

A Wayfaring Stranger presents the final period in Dohnányi's exceptional career and uses a range of previously unavailable material to reexamine commonly held beliefs about the musician and his unique oeuvre. Offering insights into his life as a teacher, pianist, and composer, the book also considers the difficulties of émigré life, the political charges made against him, and the compositional and aesthetic dilemmas faced by a conservative artist. To this rich biographical account, Veronika Kusz adds an in-depth examination of Dohnányi's late works--in most cases the first analyses to appear in musicological literature. This corrective history provides never-before-seen photographs of the musician's life in the United States and skillfully illustrates Dohnányi's impact on European and American music and the culture of the time.

Hungarian American Voices - Hangunk

European Studies: Ask a Librarian

Ask a Librarian: Recorded Sound Research Services

Recorded Sound & Audio: Ask a Librarian

Music, Audio and Video Materials