(b Nagyabony, Hungary [now Vel'ké Blahovo, Slovakia], bap. 21 Oct 1764; d Pest, 26 April 1827). Hungarian violinist and composer. He appeared in Pest in 1801 (or 1802) with his band, which is said to have consisted of four violinists and a cimbalom player. From then on he worked mainly in Pest and soon became widely known.
It was his superb interpretation, not his own music, that was praised in contemporary records. Of the former not even a rough idea can be formed from the three publications (Vienna, 1807–11), which include nearly a quarter of Bihari's surviving Hungarian dances, written down and transcribed by others, perhaps partly by Count János Fáy. When he played to the members of the Hungarian Parliament in Pozsony, he was praised by the best-known Hungarian paper (Hazai tudósitások, 24 November 1811) not as a composer, but as ‘a consummate master of the violin’. The only letter in his own hand that has come down to us was written to the palatine in the capital (Buda-Pest) in 1814; in it he referred to his recruitment of soldiers at the time of Napoleon's offensive in 1809, presenting himself not as a composer but as ‘a musician well known to the public’.
To Bihari, recital and composition, or reshaping, were probably fairly similar notions, since his own world of music was so close to folk art (doubtless due to his gypsy origins). Some of his compositions were variants of folksongs, others completely original. Many of both these categories have survived as folk music to the present. The genre of which he (together with Lavotta and Csermák, two non-gypsy violin virtuosos) was the most illustrious representative, the recruiting music, the verbunkos, had its origin in popular music, more particularly in an energetic male peasant dance which had been performed during recruitment since the mid-18th century. This is the source of the captivating pathos and heroism of the verbunkos and of Bihari's music, and of its noble, dance-like character common to his slow and fast movements. Still older were the tunes he used which are probably contemporary with or slightly later than Rákóczi's war of independence (i.e. early 18th century). One of these, a Rákóczi song which was widespread in the 18th century and extant in a number of variants, was amalgamated in about 1810 with the recruiting music to produce the Rákóczi March. Bihari played both the song and the march; it cannot be proved whether the latter was devised by him or another, but it was he who made it most widely known.
All social classes found pleasure in his music, which was halfway between folk music and well-written art music, and in his matchless skill as a performer. Bihari was praised by such poets as Sándor Kisfaludy and Dániel Berzsenyi as well as by Count István Széchenyi; Beethoven heard him play on several occasions in Vienna, and used one of Bihari's tunes in his overture König Stephan (1811). In 1814 he played in Vienna during the Congress. In 1815, on Margaret Island, well-born young men performed a stately national dance to his music at one of the Grand Duchess Pavlovna Katharina's festivities. In 1820, on Csepel Island at a great popular spectacle following the military exercises, it was to Bihari's music that peasants performed dances in the presence of the Emperor Franz, Prince Albrecht and other royalty. It was at this time that Baron Podmaniczky sent some pieces by Bihari to Weber. In 1823 Liszt, then still a child, played the Rákóczi March together with compositions by Bihari, Lavotta and Csermák from Ágoston Mohaupt's verbunkos collection, which was then published, at one of his Pest concerts. In 1825 Bihari performed at the queen's coronation ceremony and ball in Pozsony, with works of his own composed for that occasion (published in Vienna in 1828, arranged for the guitar by Pfeifer and for the piano by Joseph Czerný). That, however, was during his decline as a performer; in the previous year he had broken his left arm and he was gradually deserted by his former colleagues. He died in poverty.
A large number of compositions by Bihari, who never read or wrote a note, had by that time been published in various Hungarian verbunkos collections, written in far simpler notation than that in which their composer played them. His influence was lasting. It can be felt in the character of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, observed in the formal principles of one type of Erkel's arias, and traced even in the latest published transcriptions and current musical practice.
F. Liszt: Des bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie (Paris, 1859, 2/1881/R; Eng. trans., 1926/R, as The Gypsy in Music)
E. Major: Bihari János (Budapest, 1928) [incl. thematic catalogue of about 80 of his works]
B. Szabolcsi: A XIX. század magyar romantikus zenéje [Hungarian Romantic music of the 19th century] (Budapest, 1951)
D. Legány: A magyar zene krónikája: zenei művelodésünk ezer éve dokumentumokban [Chronicle of Hungarian music: 1000 years of documentation on musical culture] (Budapest, 1962)
B. Sárosi: Cigányzene [Gypsy music] (Budapest, 1971; Eng. trans., 1978)
DEZSŐ LEGÁNY