HUNGARIAN BOYS
                 THEIR MUSIC MINDS
By Eva Mitchell Cook
Los Angeles Herald, Volume 27, Number 45, 14 November 1897
  Published at DVHH.org 28 May 2020 by Jody McKim Pharr

     Wednesday morning, thanks to the courtesy oil the Orpheum management, I was bidden to hear Kaiser Franz Josef's Magyar Husaren Knaben Kapelle — whew—rehearse. The hour had been had been set for 10 o'clock, and I was there.  I had heard the brilliant performance of the boys Monday night, and was enchanted at the prospect of a more informal, short-range squint at them. The courteous Mr. Bray met me at the door and escorted me up the stairway to a large hall In the Orpheum building, where the interesting ordeal is conducted.

     As we reached the second floor a riotous saturnalia of sound crashed out.  Mr. Bray opened the door of the hall, and, behold there seated on three sides of a hollow square were the little Hungarians, blowing until their eyes bulged, and making a noise that sounded like nothing so much as Pandemonium and Bedlam mixed and in a lively state of fermentation.

GLIMPSES AT REHEARSAL

      Could it be that the young cherubs, whose exquisite accuracy, beautiful, richly mellow tones, delightful phrasing and complete ensemble work. had commanded my respectful admiration a couple of nights before, had suddenly been transformed into small but active fiends? Had they all gone mad at once? Was it a variety of Hungarian music with which I was not familiar? The bandmaster was not there—what had happened to the children in his absence? I looked helplessly at Mr. Bray.

     That gentleman smiled reassuringly and said: "They are just warming up their instruments!" Warming up their instruments indeed! Well, either those instruments or my ear drums would have a hole box within thirty seconds if that inferno kept up. But It didn't. Just then in walked Herr Kapelmeister, and with the military precision which marks the every move, the small imps closed their small mouths, took the instruments torture there from, stood upon their small feet and saluted.

     He is very young, is this clever Niklas Schilzonyi, musician director and master of boys' band. Only 22 and a graduate of the same school from which these boys come. He has since been an instruction in the school. When he was but 19 years old he directed the Staats Kapel in Siebenburgen, and he and he is still in army service. He has entire charge of the boys musical education, and drills them for hours every day. He has great ability in technique; the national fire burns in his blood, and he plays upon the b--- as upon an instrument, which respects to every slightest but masterly moment of his baton.

     Motioning the boys to be seated the rehearsal commenced at once and with a will. It was the evening's program and the first numbers they grappled with was Rakocs--overture, with its delicious harmonist wild tumult of feeling, its fiery song. All semblance of the discordant shrieks had vanished, and through the slow richness of the basses ran the clam limpid sweetness of the clarinets.
     Everything seem to be going as smoothly as heart could wish, when suddenly the warning rat-tat-tat of the baton on the music rack implied that something was off somewhere, and Herr Schilzonyi's keen ear had detected it. The music stopped promptly and in a low kindly tone (he never raises his voice) the conductor in unctuous German made his connotation, or suggestion, or asked a question on which was answered in a sweet childish voice, and the phrase was repeated. For two hours the rehearsal lasted in which the children got up, stretched their little legs, chatted together, strolled about and rested, and then they went at it again, "with trumpet and drum."

     For two hours they worked, with frequent corrections, pang the same bars over and over. Yes all that time there was not a sigh, impatient, or even tired gesture expressed, and I thought - Where else could one find thirty-three boys, ranging from 6 to 16, who would not feel such absorbing interest in a given piece of work, for it was work even while it was play - which  seems paradoxical - that not one should give a sign of fatigue or boredom? But it was even so, and it is because they love it, every one of them, to the marrow of their little beings, and there was the liveliest interest in each little face the whole time.

     The only sign of fatigue about that rehearsal was the uniform. In place of brilliant red, the diminutive Magyars were garbed in navy blue, a scarlet line followed the outside seam of their pant-lets, their jackets had a military cut, and their vizored caps ditto.  All their shoes were freshly blacked, heel as well as toe, and they small feet in them kept up with the merry tat-oo in time to the music - not on the floor, bless you, n o three-fourths of them can't reach the floor, but against one another or the chair legs; they were all going, through, in unison, quite different from the repost they show on the stage where each little pair is tightly crossed and clinched to keep them decorously quiet. 

     At the rehearsal, however, there was more latitude allowed, and although their faces, hands, necks, even their ears were ns spotless and well groomed as were their uniforms and shoes, they gave unquestionable evidence in many ways that they are healthy, wholesome, normal, happy boys, rarely gifted, under as strict military discipline abroad as when at home, but "I never see a cleaner, more stylish mess o' children in my life" (thanks, Mrs. Wiggin-Riggs) than are these same small Hungarian musicians. And they are musicians in the best sense of that much abused term.

     If you don't believe it, try to play any of the instruments that these boys handle with such consummate ease and skill. Take a trombone or a bass tuba and see what happens on the other end, see how hard you have to work to get any sound at all, then try to get the tone mellow and rich instead of a blaring bleat. Take a trumpet or a cornet or a flugelhorn and see if you can get any shading in tone; take a clarinet and see if it doesn't keep you occupied the rest of your life to get the results that these boys have already achieved; try to start with the precision and end with the same, that characterizes the work of these midgets, and you will be able to understand how remarkable are their achievements, how wonderfully capable they are individually and as a band.

     While they were rehearsing one of their own delicious czardas with its tender melancholy and its infectious sweetness, Mr. Gustav Walter, whose pride and pet these boys are, came into the hall, and when, at the conclusion of the number we were introduced, tears stood In the eyes of both—not because we were introduced but because of the spirit In the music which we had both been made to fed so keenly, and neither Mr. Walter nor I are what could be termed victims of the habit of weeping.

     He sat down and told me many Interesting things about the boys, their life and their home. It seems that In the extreme southern part of Hungary there is a small town called Billed, which was originally settled by the Saxons, and which now has a population of less than 6000 people, where the men still wear knee breeches and three-cornered hats; and where the streets are so narrow that two people can reach out of windows on the opposite sides and shake hands. No need of anti-hitching ordinances in Billed because wagons can't get into them. These small lads are not Gypsies, but are directly descended from the old Saxons, who intermarried with the Hungarians, and they seem to have all the best qualities of their ancestors of both nationalities. Mr. Walter says they are polite, obedient to the letter and good; they never quarrel—don't know what it is; are loyal and brave as little lions; and music is their very life. The moment they are out of bed in the morning they rush for their instruments and begin to play.

     Their fathers are fully educated Hungarian magnates, not laboring people but of the higher middle classes, or just one degree removed from nobility. Many of them are musicians in the army, and the boys come from the military school at Billed, which is maintained by the government for the education of musicians for the military bands, and which was founded in the fourteenth century. The strictest military discipline is maintained there, and children are admitted from four years up, or whenever their musical talent is discovered.

     Mr. Walter, when he went abroad this summer in search of musical novelties, remembered the Billed school, from which some of the greatest composers have come, and which has graduated most of the material for the Austrian bands, that are the best in the world, and he went there and heard these boys play. But he found It very difficult to persuade their parents and the government to let him have them. Finally, however, they were allowed to come, that the outside world might see and know their talent, and Mr. Walter signed a contract to return them inside of two years and clinched the matter with a deposit of 8000 gulden.

     With the boys, besides Kapelle-meister Schilzonyi, is Mikel Nussbaum, who plays one of the flugelhorns in the band, and who has entire charge of their physical and mental requirements. He teaches them for a couple of hours a day in "reading, 'writing and 'arithmetic," attends to their rising and retiring, and a motherly Hungarian woman manages the commissary department, cooks Hungarian dishes and attends generally to their little inner men.

PETER SCHWARTZ, CONCERT MASTER

     They don't like fancy cooking, won't touch rare beef nor beefsteak; they like their beef boiled, plain, nourishing food, delicacies like sausage and ham, soup and vegetables with plenty of paprika in everything. They do not drink either tea or coffee, but light Hungarian wine, and they won't touch pastry, these small Huns, nor ice cream —because it "burns their stomachs."

     "The boys have plenty of exercise every day," said Mr. Walter, "and they are growing so fast and getting so fat that they are outgrowing their uniforms." And I glanced at the wall, where said uniforms were hanging in a row, a brilliant splash of color against the dull background. There they hung, be-braided jackets and trousers, russet be-spurred boots, glittering swords, and caps with their perky white pompons. Some of the trousers were inside out, evidently having been literally peeled off the night before, and a silent yet eloquent testimonial of Mr. Walter's words. "They are the full military hussar uniform, perfect in every detail," said he, "and you will notice the shape of the swords—and they are none of your toy tin swords, either, but of the finest tempered steel, and the curve in the handle signifies the magnate, and none but magnates are allowed to wear them.  I am having a car built expressly for these little magnates now, fitted up like a hotel, and they will live in that car for the next two years, while they are traveling and stopping, as they will, in all the principal cities in America. I am booking their tour now, and when they leave here they will go direct to Boston.

     "In Vienna, on the way over, they gave a series of concerts to packed houses; they played at Dreher-Park before 15,000 people; ladles came in carriages loaded with flowers, which they showered upon them, and tin' empress of Austria was there and sent each member of the band a bouquet, in Bremen they gave three concerts, and at the last the mayor made a speech and presented each boy with a one mark piece for lurk.

     "You will notice that the make-up of the band differs from the American brass organizations. There are no cornets, but flugelhorns in place of them; then the trombones are manipulated with valve instead of pushing in and out, the regular army trombone; again, there are three instead of four French or Wald horns, and two Es claronets take the place of flutes. This is all done for bettering the effect in the ensemble." And as the band burst into Sousa's "King Cotton" march conversation for the time being was suspended.  ~EVA MITCHELL COOK.