Párhuzamok és Kontrasztok

Amazingly Muzsikás' last record, The Bartók Album, came out in 1998 and was a Top of the World in #1. It's not that they've been inactive since then with frequent concerts in Hungary and abroad, they just haven't been making records. At first this seems like a new departure, a collaboration with Amadinda, a Hungarian percussion group best-known for working with contemporary composers including Steve Reich. Here, though, they are playing pieces from Malawi, Gabon, Zimbabwe and Tahiti. Representing the latter, ‘Otea’ is a real tour de force with various drums, grunts and yells. The recording is from a joint concert in Budapest's Palace of Arts.

The pieces actually alternate, so the slow shepherds' music on flute and violin that opens the album leads into a fast balafon duo from Malawi, which segues into a gorgeous Transylvanian tune learned from Neti Sándor, one of the masterful old Gypsy fiddlers. There's really just one track, ‘Sirató’ (Lament), where musicians from the two groups actually play together. Péter Éri plays a flute melody from the Carpathians over the soft chiming of Zoltán Váczi's mbira. It's rather haunting and suggests that a more ambitious collaboration could be done.