Kömives Kelemen balladája

In 1922 I had already used the popular melody of “Kömives Kelemen balladája” (The ballad of Kelemen Kömives) in the first movement of my “Two pieces on Hungarian folk songs” for piano. In 1960, I took up this old song comprising 14 verses on the same motif in the form of Lied that I orchestrated under the name “Kömives Kelemen balladája”. In the accompaniment, I used only the notes of the melody, increasing, decreasing or reversing them and, sometimes, condensing this material to achieve dramatic climaxes.

This ballad has a very dramatic subject dating of the 16. century:

“There were masons, nine or twelve. They took upon themselves to erect a building - strong and beautiful, like none there was before. And they worked day and night but whatever they constructed collapsed.

And it was so for three weeks - even three years. The head mason, Kelemen Kömives, then learned that they needed to make a sacrifice: to offer the first woman who comes the next day, as atonement.

And the next morning Kelemen Kömives wife came, loving, with a good meal for her husband. And the masons seized her, and they built her into the walls. And the walls stood from then on”. — Ferenc Farkas