This recording is a witness to the last passage of a rich musical heritage that fascinated figures such as Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály: the last masters and the first disciples are reunited, who will be the reference for subsequent generations in a completely different social context. Numerous styles of dance and song – often accompanied by the recorder, bagpipes, reed, hurdy-gurdy, zither, tambura lute, violin, cymbalum, gardon viol (with struck strings), or spoons – form the basis of traditional Hungarian music: songs of the old style linked to weddings, traditional quests, winter and summer solstice bonfires; and the new style nourished by contributions from Serbian, Swabian, and Slovakian neighbouring cultures... As for the Gypsies, dance and a cappella songs play a predominant role, in a style that is often spectacular and whose vocabulary, sometimes very bold, is that of everyday life, mixed with the most delicate poetry.
