Music of Hungary

Indigenous Hungarian music is unique in all of Europe in its similarities to the musical forms of north-eastern China, where the people are descended from the same ancestors (Huns) as modern Hungarians. Shared characteristics include the pentatonic scale and the fifth structure[?], which creates a distinctive sound. Musician and musical theorist Bela Bartok, probably the most internationally famous Hungarian musician, has studied the similarities between Hungarian and Turkish folk music.

Hungarian Gypsy music is often represented as "the music of the Gypsies[?]", though multiple forms of Gypsy music are common throughout Europe and are unrelated to Hungarian forms. In the 19th century, verbunkos[?] was the most popular style among Hungarian Gypsies, especially the virtuoso János Bihari[?]. Bihari and others after his death helped invent the nota[?], a popular form written by composers like Lóránt Fráter[?], Árpád Balázs[?], Pista Dankó[?], Béni Egressy[?], [[Mark Rózsavölgyi]] and Imre Farkas[?]. Rózsavölgyi's invention of the csárdás[?] makes him especially important. Verbunkos, nota and csárdás are sometimes collectively called cigányzene[?], misrepresented as "Gypsy music".