Dick Marta plays the Hungarian Cimbalom

At some point every record collector finds a particular niche they like to focus on. Some collectors move from niche to niche over the years, while other decide to collect specific types of records, usually a specific genre of music. For a while I got hooked on portable stringed instruments, especially percussive ones, like the hammered dulcimer.

Ruth Welcome is well known for her 1950s Zither recordings, and I have picked up a few of her records over the years. One of them was called “Cafe Continental”, on the rather obscure Cook label (10326) out of Stamford, Connecticut. It turned out the LP featured a series of artists, but I didn’t notice it at the time. I listened to a bit of Welcome’s part of the record and filed it away for some time.

At some point when sorting through my collection, I came upon it again and it was at this time that I noticed the other artists featured. I played the second part of side A, which features Dick Marta playing the Hungarian Cimbalom. I was blown away. The music was intense, and quite hysterical (to me). I decided to put it on a mixed tape for a road trip and I got the same response from my fellow travellers: “What on earth?”

Apparently the recording was considered to be culturally significant, and has been archived by the “Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage” library. You can order a CD copy of the record here. According to the Smithsonian:

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Schrammelmusik rose from the slums of Vienna (a musical product of the meeting of Austrian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Moravian and Bavarian immigrants) to the fashionable haunts of Vienna’s aristocracy and even the Austrian court. Now stylish in the cafés of Vienna and Budapest, the music—largely waltzes and ländlers—is usually played with accordion and double-necked guitar. This collection features instead the zither and cimbalom in an airy and delicate combo.

Dick Marta downloads:
Brahms: Hungarian Dance #8
Roumanian Rhapsody
Album artwork