Hungarian Boys Band Begins Week Of Concert
The STORY OF THE BAND
The Daily Leader, Lexington, KY, July 18, 1899
  Published at DVHH.org 05 May 2020 by Jody McKim Pharr

     The Hungarian Boys Band deserves all the praise that can be heaped up-on it.

     The forty little tots, ranging from 6 to 16, certainly did themselves proud at their opening concert at Woodland Park last night, and as a reward they won the hearts and applaudits of the audience from the start.

     In spite of the coolness of the evening a splendid crowd, composed of Lexington's best element turned out to hear the Hungarian youngsters.

     Their playing was certainly most remarkable for a boys' band, and not only was their execution accurate, but their tones at all times were good and the ensemble effect of the music most pleasing.

     The program was well arranged, including as it did just enough of the classic to please those who enjoy that kind of music, and still enough of the so-called popular to catch the majority.

     The interpretation of the William Tell overture and the Wagnerian fantasies were perhaps among the most difficult attempts during the evening. For encores the little band played several of Sousa's marches and National air Medleys. "Dixie," of course, brought down the house, as did also the rousing playing of "The Star Spangled Banner."

     There were over 1,000 people in the first night audience, and judging from the enthusiasm displayed the band will draw big all the rest of the week.

     The matinee this afternoon brought out the ladies and children in good  fashion and tonight promises to increase the crowd.

WHERE THEY COME FROM.

     After hearing the Hungarian Boys Band it may be interesting to know where these tiny tots of musical proclivities come from. They hail from the musical school of Billed, Hungary, where they and others are taught music and discipline preparatory to their entering the band of the empire when they shall have become of age. This school, while not exactly the counterpart of West Point and Annapolis, is under the patronage of the Austrian-Hungarian Government, and graduates are given preferential positions. Their life at home is much the same in routine as when traveling--up at 6:30, breakfast at 7:30, play until 9:30 and then band practice for two hours. Dinner follows and then school for reading, writing and arithmetic for two hours, recreation and supper, theater, and then go to bed to dream of their fathers, mothers and playmates In far away Hungary.

AN EDUCATIONAL TOUR.

     This tour was taken with the idea of making a paying educational affair for as many of the students as could be practically without financial loss, and so forty were chosen from one hundred and twenty and placed In charge of Mr. Niklas Schilzonyi, the chief Instructor ex-army bandmaster and all around strict disciplinarian. One tour was commenced in August, 1897, and finished in November, 1898. This was a financial and artistic success, so much so that a second tour was projected, and those who are now playing in Lexington arrived on the North German Lloyd steamer from Bremen June 15, (1899) commencing in Washington, thence to Old Point Comfort, and from there to Lexington.

WHAT THE BOYS EAT

     The greatest care must be exercised in the selection of their quarters and their food, as the former must necessarily be clean and airy, and the latter as near Hungarian diet as possible, for these tots do not care for many of the American luxuries, preferring rye bread to white, a "goulash stew to the finest sirloin steak, and an onion to an apple Their instruments are all of foreign make from the little drum of aluminum rim to the pounded brass cymbals from Constantinople. Fluegelhorns are used instead of cornets, and in the shepherds song in the overture to "William Tell. the taragota instead of the oboe. This last instrument is believed to be the only one in America, and is as near like the primitive flute of the mountain shepherd as it is possible to make it.

ALL NATIVES OF HUNGARY

     The boys are all natives of Hungary many of them being the descendants of the noble Magyars and others from the Germans who emigrated to that section some hundred years ago. Their names have a strange sound to the ordinary American ear, from that of Mr. Schilzonyi, the bandmaster and tutor to such boys, who rejoice in the names of Tittel, Rotschink, Tybre, Boyard and Stefan.

     They go from here to New Orleans and thence to the Pacific coast. Their tour is under the direction of C. E. Bray, who directed their former tour in 1897 and 1898, and whose wife and Mrs. Schilzonyi attend to the motherly wants of this bunch of musical kids.