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Written in fRoots issue 292, 2007
 

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Csillagok, Csillagok… (Stars, Stars…) – A Celebration Of Hungarian Music
FolkEurópa FECD 026 (2006)

ÁGI SZALÓKI
Cipity Lőrinc
FolkEurópa FECD 027 (2006)

VARIOUS
Hangvető 2006-1007 Compilation
Hangvetö HV03 (2006)

In Hungary traditional, classical and jazz musics meet in ways that they don’t in the UK, except to some extent in Scotland. Part of the reason for this is that the country’s most famous composer, Béla Bartók, championed the huge quantity of music he found and minutely documented in the villages, used it in his compositions in ways far more subtle and complex than most other European ‘cowpat’ composers of his era and before, and made it abundantly obvious that these were no ‘simple folk airs’, as folk music sources have often been regarded in ‘classical’ circles, but the product of a high art. As Bartók’s fame spread, the folk music he treasured gained and has maintained a substantial status as an iconic part of the culture of the country, even though, as in most European countries, rural life and society and its musical needs have changed.

      In the last few years there have been at least a couple of impressive albums that have juxtaposed traditional material and playing styles with Bartók compositions, notably one by Muzsikás and one by violinist and viola player Róbert Lakatos with his band The Rév. Perhaps the most successful yet, Csillagok, Csillagok – Stars, Stars… A Celebration Of Hungarian Music, was put together largely by Lakatos too, as musical director and musician. Involving seventeen leading musicians it’s an exciting, varied piece of work that captures the sounds, vibrancy and skill of village music while integrating jazz touches and ten of Bartók’s most obviously folk tune rooted short pieces so seamlessly that there is no clear dividing line between them.
      The opening sequence, recorded live at the project’s premiere in Budapest’s Palace of Arts, flows from a gorgeous pastoral Bartók piece led by the thrilling, spirited tone of classical violinist Vilmos Szabadi into two traditional tunes arranged by Lakatos and, playing with his customary astonishing brilliance and subtlety, by cimbalist Kálmán Balogh. Later Balogh joins Mihály Dresch’s jazz soprano sax and Ferenc Kovács’s trumpet and violin in three Kovács compositions, based on a line from a folksong, that stretch out into expressive jazz melodic improvisation.
      Bartók’s violin duet Kalamajkó, one of several of his short duets here, opens out into lads’ dance tunes from Kalotaszeg, followed for the album’s title sequence by songs from the same region led by duetting singers Ági Szalóki and Éva Korpás, segue-ing into the fast-duetting fiddles of Tamás Gombai and Balázs Vizali and back into the lovely slow song Két Hajnali Kalotaszegröl accompanied by surging viola chording and lyrical tenor sax.
      It’s an album that reveals more at each listen, and is destined for my Critics’ Poll choices for this year.

      The 2006 CD Lament by traditional singer Ági Szalóki, who appears on Csillagok, Csillagok, was very positively reviewed in fRoots 273, and though it’s all based on folk song material it won the year’s Hungarian Music Award for Best Jazz Album. Her latest, Cipity Lőrinc, is an album for children, comprising folk songs from Hungary and nearby, plus occasional poems set to music or read by actors. With a band comprising guitar, cello, piano, bass, violin, furulya and bagpipe in elegant, arrangements, much of it could have been on a non-children’s album, though Szalóki does occasionally use that slightly toe-curling “talking to children” voice when sharing a track with a children’s chorus.

      The Clouds Of Dusk Are Flying from Cipity Lőrinc and one of Róbert Lakatos’s arrangements from Csillagok, Csillagok grace the latest compilation from Hangvető (the name means ‘sound-sower). This Hungarian collective distributor founded by the labels Etnofon, FolkEurópa and X-Produkció now handles most of the releases of distinctively Hungarian roots music and jazz from nearly thirty labels. The seventeen tracks on Compilation 2006-2007 also include strong items from Ferenc Kiss, Besh o droM, Mihály Dresch, Mitsoura, the Serbian/Hungarian Roma Earth-Wheel-Sky Band, and showcase tracks from some of the many other impressive musicians and bands who are less well-known abroad.

      All three albums are available from www.hangveto.hu


© 2007 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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