Classical gypsies

Many non-gypsy musicians and composers in Hungary found it helpful to spread the rumour that their brilliance could only be of gypsy origin.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) described himself as a "mixture of gypsy and Franciscan" and supposed - wrongly - that the "gypsy" music identified with the verbunkos and csard as styles was the folk music of Hungary, rather than the hybrid form it was.

In the heyday of Hungarian nationalism, Liszt seized on the csardas as a source for his Hungarian Rhapsodies, but it was left to Bela Bartok (18181945) and Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967) in a later generation to distinguish the true folk music of Hungary from the popular music provided by the gypsy bands.

The best-known gypsy musician who switched from entertainment to classical music was probably the virtuoso cimbalom player Aladar Racz, who taught Stravinsky to play the instrument and inspired him to write for it in the early 20th century. The pianist Gyorgy Cziffra made his home in France after the failed rising of 1956, and found many admirers for his interpretations of Liszt and Chopin.