Come on, Kathy, the hurdy gurdy's playing

A new item from Budapest for our hurdy gurdy collection: Organ grinder in post-WWII
Kígyó street, the City of Budapest (Endre Friedmann). And since you are here,
have a look at the site and museum of the last organ grinder of Budapest.
You can listen to the title-giving song here:


Kalmár Pál, A verkli szól, Katikám, a ligetbe

“– They believe that hurdy gurdy must be just turned, but no, it is exactly like the “manual piano”. If you have no practice and no feeling inside, then there is no “Takt”, and the song does not make any sense. Last time in the Castle a gentleman tried it. He was laughed at by everybody. The “Spanish serenade” is different from “Fatig” or from “Why are you kidding?”

– The income is at most forty thousand crowns a day. And look how ragged banknotes they drop, only fifty crown and hundred crown pieces that they would be ashamed to give even to a beggar…

– The competition is terrible. The gramophone, the schramli music. It ruins us. The schramli music is the cause of all that.

– But then who do you play for?

– Well, you look for such houses, in Óbuda, in the Tabán, where very poor people live. Office clerks and that kind…”

Dezső Kosztolányi: “Figures”. Pesti Hírlap, January 1927

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