New World a-Coming, Ch. 27
Terésa-Marie Szabo
From the Dictionary of Bassandan National Biography
violin, voice, dance, répetiteur, impresaria, political activist
Born c 1920, vicinity of Gyongyos (northern Hungary), Sopron Mountains. Father Romany gypsy (from a Bassanda tribe), mother Hungarian lady of quality. Learned Romany violin in traveling encampments, but also attended Franz Liszt conservatory from age 15 on “genius” scholarship. May have served as informant and folk-music source for Béla Bartók prior to the latter's flight to America from Budapest
Appears to have met Yezget Nas1lsinez around 1939, while he was working sub rosa in Bassanda to set up escape routes for Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, dissidents, musicians, and others targeted by Nazi party. Unclear whether she was one of those rescued, though there is a story, told around Romany campfires, that the two first met when, aged 17, she accosted YN in the lobby of Budapest’s Grand Hotel Royal, as he was departing for an early morning train journey, and insisted that he speak privately with her “on a matter of great urgency to my people”—hence, some possibility that the initial work with YN was supporting the escape networks of Roma and other persons targeted by the Hungarian Arrow Cross (fascist) Party.
Performed in various YN chamber groups and samizdat recordings from age 19. Also took early and leading role as “straw boss” (tour, ensemble, and rehearsal manager—a term YN appears to have got from Duke Ellington c1935), dance captain, and repetiteur. As the one-off projects began to expand (1943-45) into what became the earliest versions of the Bassanda National Radio Orchestra, T-MS moved into role as concert-mistress. Was crucial ongoing link between BNRO and Displaced Persons networks who smuggled refugees, instruments, supplies, recordings, and scores into and out of the Eastern Bloc in the 1950s—it now appears that the BNRO not infrequently assisted those fleeing to the West by passing them off as Orchestra personnel, family members, support staff, drivers, etc. More than one successful escapee claimed to have crossed the frontier carrying an empty violin or saxophone case, as T-MS distracted border personnel with arguments in a mélange of Hungarian, Czech, German, French, English, and Bassandan.
T-MS identified as a strong performer of Central European and new music, particularly adept at dance- and dance-inspired repertoire. Is known to have inherited Hungarian, Czech, Turkish, and Romany dance from her father’s family. YN once said “the impeccability of her technique is matched only by the inadmissibility of her language,” but refused to require that she ameliorate her manners, commenting “that’s why she plays as she does.”
Reputed to have once burned a Socialist army theater to the ground following a concert, though whether intentionally or inadvertently is unclear: it was later established that T-MS had been smoking cigars and drinking slivovitz with the Roma janitorial staff in the basement, but by the time investigators followed up on this allegation, the BNRO was across the border into the neighboring satellite, and the Roma workers were nowhere to be found.