István Almási, the foremost authority on Hungarian folk music research in Transylvania, descended from an old Transylvanian Reformed ministerial family. His great-grandfather was Sámuel Almási, a renowned song collector of the 19th century, whose name is known from János Erdélyi's publication Népdalok és mondák (Folk songs and sagas, 1846-1848) and from the seven volumes of István Bartalus' Magyar népdalok egyetemes gyűjteménye (Universal Collection of Hungarian Folk Songs, 1873-1896).
István Almási worked at the Folklore Institute at Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) for almost half a century, from 1957 to 2004. As an academic researcher, he led and represented – often single-handedly – the cause of Transylvanian Hungarian ethnology. In parallel with his scientific work, he also worked as a church musician and choirmaster, and after his retirement he undertook the teaching of music folklore in Transylvanian Hungarian higher education institutions.
He started playing the violin as a child. From 1951 he studied at the Music Academy at Kolozsvár, where he studied music teaching and choir conducting. It was there that János Jagamas noticed the promising student and, after graduating from the College, took him on as a student at the Folklore Institute in Kolozsvár. János Jagamas, who was awarded the Széchenyi Prize, was one of the most important figures in the post-World War II Transylvanian higher education of musicians and scholars. He studied composition in Budapest as a student of Kodály, and was one of those who transmitted to Transylvania the spirit and approach of the new Hungarian composition, musicology and pedagogy based on folk music. The best musicians and composers from Kolozsvár were all students of Jagamas.
Like István Almási's master, János Jagamas, and his colleague Zoltán Kallós, he belongs to the great folk music collectors. He collected and recorded about five thousand vocal and instrumental melodies in about 130 localities in areas of the region of Partium and Transylvania that were unknown or little explored from the point of view of folk music (Érmellék, Szilágyság, Lápos mente, Aranyosszék, Kis-Küküllő-Maros interfluve, Nyárádmente, Homoród, Háromszék). This activity is the origin of the solid ethnographic knowledge and the exceptional knowledge of the places and materials that underpin his scientific work.
His early major work is the monographic publication Magyargyerőmonostori népköltészet (Folk Poetry of Mănăstiren, with Katalin Olosz, 1969). His book 245 népi táncdallam (245 folk dance tunes, with Iosif Herţeava, 1970) contains a source publication of Hungarian, Romanian and German dance tunes. The adventurous and sad history of the latter book was later described in a study. This study reminds us that to evaluate the achievements of Hungarian scholars and artists in Transylvania, it is essential to be familiar with the social and political environment of the Ceauşescu era for Hungarians living in the minority. The suffocating atmosphere of this period was communicated to some extent internationally by the Transylvanian Saxon minority from its own point of view, but not yet, or only to a limited extent, by the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Almost the whole of István Almási's career, which began in 1951, fell within this inhuman, tragically difficult period.
István Almási's name is associated with several fundamental works and manuals of Hungarian ethnomusicology. He is the author of the monograph Szilágysági magyar népzene (Hungarian folk music in Sălaj, 1979), which was awarded the Romanian Academy Prize. This volume is based on Almási's "almost one and a half decade of collecting, which, through his exemplary work, has revealed a specific layer of our folk music, from the traditional landscape of Szilágyság, which forms a bridge between the dialects of the Great Hungarian Plane and Transylvania", writes Katalin Paksa about the volume.
Many of Almasi's writings deal with the person, works and far-reaching pedagogical influence of the more or less forgotten János Seprődi (1874-1923). He is co-author (with András Benkő and István Lakatos) of the massive volume Seprődi János válogatott zenei írásai és népzenei gyűjtése (János Seprődi's Selected Musical Writings and Folk Music Collection, 1974), which deals with Seprődi's musical legacy, and Seprődi is the subject of several of his studies. Almási's main merit is to raise awareness of the fact that János Seprődi is one of the central figures in Transylvanian Hungarian folk music research. Almási has done his best to ensure that, as a kind of ex post facto justice, Seprődi is given his rightful place in the history of science.
In addition to his studies on the analysis, systematization and history of melodies, István Almási edited, provided a postscript and bibliography to the volume of János Jagamas' selected studies entitled A népzene mikrokozmoszában (Inside the Microcosm of Folk Music, 1984).
He has always paid great attention to the history of science and research in Transylvania, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the subject in 1989, entitled Az erdélyi magyar népzenekutatás kezdetei (The beginnings of Hungarian folk music research in Transylvania).
Almási is a permanent musical collaborator for any related disciple, author and editor of the music section of books in associated fields. The volumes of German and Yiddish folk poetry, translated and compiled by Sándor Kányádi, and the ballad collections and essays of József Faragó bear witness to this.
He edited and published a volume of his selected essays entitled A népzene jegyében (In the Sign of Folk Music, 2009). About a quarter of the 25 essays in the collected volume are about the Transylvanian aspects of the great figures of Hungarian folk music research, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha. Another four essays introduce important researchers living or born in Transylvania (János Seprődi, János Jagamas, Péter Domokos Pál Domokos, Bálint Sárosi). The author then introduces us to little-known early sources of Transylvanian Hungarian folk music, such as the vast 19th-century song collection of Sámuel Almási, and the early 1900s collections of Lajos Áprily, János Bogdán and Lajos Kocsis. Some analytical and comparative studies also offer a glimpse into Almási's scientific workshop. The series concludes with an illuminating overview of the history of the Folklore Institute at Kolozsvár.
One of János Jagamas' writings, from 1980, gives us a hint about Almási’s plight at this institution in a veiled language: 'Almási... was appointed a full researcher at the Folklore Institute in early 1957. Later, certain measures had a negative effect on our folk music research. After 1960, he alone had to shoulder the burden of what previously was too much for even four researchers. For almost two decades, Almási stood his ground in this predicament. Despite all the difficulties, including personal ones, he continued his work with dogged diligence and exemplary skill." (János Jagamas: Egy lépéssel közelebb a célhoz (One step closer to the goal). Korunk, 1980/6.)
After the political changes in 1989, Almási took upon himself the hardships of constant travel to use his professional knowledge and authority to help and elevate the teaching efforts of the (re)starting Hungarian higher education institutions. He has taught folk music at the Partium Christian University at Nagyvárad (Oradea), at the Faculty of Music of the University of Theatre Arts in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mures), where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2010, at the Faculty of Hungarian Ethnography and Anthropology of the Babeş-Bolyai University of Kolozsvár and at the Faculty of Reformed Teacher Training of the University of Kolozsvár.
István Almási proved to be an indispensable helper for his colleagues in Hungary: both as the music base of Hungarian scholarship abroad in Kolozsvár, and as a lecturer, opponent, or invited expert for curatorial committees.
It was only after 1989 that he was able to become involved in international academic life. For Hungarians in Romania, participation in conferences abroad was mostly subject to conditions that István Almási did not meet. Since then, however, he has demonstrated his well-founded knowledge, his wide-ranging knowledge and his high level of English, German and Romanian as a lecturer and debater at many venues and professional meetings.
István Almási has, in his considered, quiet way, created a scientific oeuvre that meets the highest professional and moral standards in changing, often very difficult circumstances. His achievements deserve every recognition.
Dr. Mária Domokos, Budapest, December 2013