A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Csardas

by Ebenezer Prout

CSARDAS. A national dance of Hungary, which consists of two movements, an andante and an allegro, both in common (4-4 or 2-4) time and in the same key. The andante, which is written in the Hungarian Lied-form, has usually no repeats; but the Allegro consists generally of eight- and sixteen-bar phrases which are repeated. The character of the latter is wild and impetuous, and the whole is sometimes in a major key, sometimes in alternating majors and minors. The music of the csárdás is always performed by gipsies, and it partakes strongly of the peculiar character of Hungarian national music, in its accents on the weak beats of the bar, its cadences, etc. An example of the csárdás, which is too long to be quoted here, may be see at p. 91 of F. L. Schubert's 'Die Tanz-musik,' from which book the above particulars are derived.

[ E. P. ]