“THE CIMBALOM IS JUST A MEANS”

Let’s look back over the past forty years. It’s a long time, don’t you think?

Well, in fact it is more than forty years, since I have been on stage since the age of twelve. If my maths is correct, this is nearer forty-four years. But forty is a nice round number. Let’s leave it at forty! The truth is I never was going to be a musician. I came across the cimbalom relatively late in life. When I was eleven we visited my uncle Elemér Balogh in Budapest. He was a fantastic urban Gypsy musician. He played with such passion, imagination and talent the like of which we have not seen again to this day. I only met him a few times because at that time he was regularly working abroad. So we travelled from Miskolc to visit Elemér, who played a melody on the cimbalom that he was just then recording: a Romanian Sirba in B minor. I learned it in ten minutes. He was very surprised and advised my parents to send me to music lessons. This is how it all started.

You then started learning the instrument at school. Was there any opportunity for this in Miskolc?

At that time there was no classical cimbalom tuition in Miskolc, which is why every Friday I would leave school and travel with my sister to Budapest to visit my teacher Beatrix Szöllős at the music school on what was then Népköztársaság Road. I regard her as a great teacher. We had two lessons and then we returned to Miskolc. In just two years I finished four years’ worth of music and applied for a place at the conservatory in Miskolc. Since at that time there was no cimbalom department, they invited Ferenc Gerencsér from Budapest, Aladár Rácz’s best pupil, who was a classical musician. Then I knew I would be a cimbalom player. At the time the Liszt Academy Teacher Training College provided the highest level graduation certificate in this field, so I set this as my goal and I completed the course.

Kálmán Balogh (Fotó: Raffay Zsófi)

You were awarded a college diploma in 1980. When did folk music first appear in your life?

Long before this. From 1972 I was playing in the Avas Dance Ensemble orchestra in Miskolc. This was folk music, but not in its original form. As was typical for the period, we played arrangements from sheet music written by composers. Traditional folk music arrived in Miskolc in 1975 in the person of András Vavrinecz, who had previously studied as a mining engineer. He launched a dance house and he presented folk music collections; in other words, he involved people in folk music. We set up a band, Nyekergő. We also went on the talent show Ki mit tud? I first played folk music with him, which is why he is a VIP guest at the Liszt Academy concert. This is when I also started playing the viola, so I could take part in the dance house musician course. I couldn’t carry a cimbalom around so I took the viola. It was great playing the three-string peasant viola. It is a real experience, easy to handle: you grasp the chords, get a rhythm going and you are away!

Not long after this the ‘folk music touring machine’ started up, I believe.

Yes. After Nyekergő there was Mákvirág, and this is the band which toured Western Europe from 1977. Then the Jánosi ensemble, Ökrös ensemble, Téka, Méta, Zsarátnok, Muzsikás… I could go on. The first really significant foreign connection came with the Swedish band Hurtig Hasse Orient Express. I played Swedish music, Hungarian dance house music and Balkan folk music with them. We appeared at the first Dance-House Meeting in 1982. Hasse was a multitalented musician: he played accordion, flute and viola. And he learned Hungarian!

Could one say that you were the first in the abovementioned genres?

I wouldn’t say that because there were always good musicians. Instead, I would say I was the first one not to play with a ‘catering’ style. Having a background in classical and folk music studies, I brought an ‘ethno’ flavour, and I could read sheet music as well. I could play the themes and jazz harmonies, and I improvised from my own feelings. This was totally novel. By 1995 I had put together my first real band, the Gipsy Cimbalom Band. Of course there were important moments, including meeting Archie Shepp, or playing the Hary Janos Suite in Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.

You teach folk cimbalom at the Liszt Academy Folk Music Department. Do you recommend your students to be open to as many trends as possible?

Yes. I pass on all my experiences garnered over the past. Here, the teaching of folk music is still not a long-established tradition rigidly determining everything. Our approach – my colleagues’ and mine – is flexible. I want students to be extremely good folk musicians, but at the same time we want to create a modern generation of musicians for the future. We must never bring up isolated, ‘blinkered’ folk musicians. Unfortunately, the line of new recruits is not sufficient. As I see it, the biggest challenge is that there is no basic training, and the intermediate level is not resolved either. The technical bases would be important. But this is all normal for a new-born department. It needs fifty years before things start coming right. In addition, I think that the cimbalom as a folk instrument is just not enough. If I consider cimbalom players currently on the international stage – for instance, Miklós Lukács, Jenő Lisztes, Marius Preda, Giani Lincan – then the following may be the recipe: knowledge of the classical repertoire, contemporary music, jazz combo and improvisation skills, all with a little ethno flavour drizzled over the top. The cimbalom is just a means: artistic quality fills it with life.

Mátyás Bolya