Word: tarogato
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Dates: during 1951-1951
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Hungarians once used the ancient tarogato-a deep-toned, clarinet-like woodwind of remote Tibetan ancestry-much as the Romans, and the Scots and Irish after them, used the bagpipe: the tarogato's sound was a stirring call to war. In skirmishes with their Austrian rulers in the early 17003, patriotic tarogato players could arouse their fellow peasants to wild combat fury merely by playing their favorite songs of freedom. The annoyed
Austrians finally saw the point, and burned every tarogato they could find...
...copy turned up at Manhattan's Carnegie Hall last week in the hands of Musician Francis Lantos, a Hungarian-born refugee. Lantos' countryman, Composer Tibor Serly (who deciphered and scored Bartok's famed Viola Concerto), had written his plaintive Chamber Folk Music for violin, piano and tarogato in 1948, but until recently had found no one who could make the instrument sing. Lantos, who broadcasts over
Radio Free Europe, is an old hand at the tarogato; he charmed Carnegie Hall's audience with his skillful exposition of its haunting personality. Although the instrument has a range of only two octaves-excluding it from ordinary orchestra work -its tone is rich and expressive; its sound is as compelling as any instrument in the woodwind family...
...compelling or not, its sound, refugees say, can no longer be heard in Hungary. The Communist regime, recalling how the tarogato's vibrant voice of freedom made trouble for the Austrians, has banned...
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