Hungary, Dazzling and Bejewled

• august 30, 2010 monday 19:00
• Dohány street Synagogue

The 100-Member Gipsy Orchestra

soloists: Lilla Polyák and Zsolt Homonnay




The older generation might still remember this ode to the motherland, serving as the title of the concert. Originally a huge hit between the two world wars, taken from the operetta Bride from Hamburg. In the Rákosi era it was banned due to the sorrow and sadness it expressed after the treaty of Versailles. It was despised by the arrow-cross as well, as the composers Zsigmond Vincze and Ernő Kulinyi, later killed in Mauthausen, were both Jewish. During the decades of the building of socialism it was supposed to heat up revolutionary emotions and as such was also barred from playing. Nonetheless, the song reached the entire world through Béla Bartók’s Concerto, as a sign of love for the homeland.
The 100-member Gypsy band will hold this extraordinary concert, playing the hits, operettas and movie themes of Jewish composers, performed by Lilla Polyák and Zsolt Homonnay. Selection was also extended to the works of Imre Kálmán, Mihály Eisenmann, Alfréd Márkus, Béla Zerkovitz, Rezső Seress and Andor Szeness.