The starting point in the co-production of Fassang László organ-player and Szokolay Dongó Balázs folk musician is their finding each other. Because the real meeting of styles cannot be born without the meeting of musical persons.

Dongó plays folk music and folk music-inspired improvisations; his instruments are the bagpipe, the flute and the saxophone. His own compositions are based on the deep knowledge of the folklore of the Carpathian Basin. It was on a Christmas concert ten years ago when he first experienced how bagpipe and organ sound together. After a long search he found that organ-player – Fassang László – with whom he could realize the organ-bagpipe duo. Fassang is really at ease at the world of classical composers; on the contrary he is accustomed to improvising music cooperation which shows new ways to other musical styles. He is as glad to play with his friends coming from the fields of jazz (Vincent Le Quang), as those playing traditional music (Palya Bea).

In the past folk and composed music were not so sharply separated as nowadays. Fassang and Dongó are searching for the meeting points, so they let these traditionally differing music worlds come closer to each other. This on-coming becomes easier through the fact that the two musicians’ instruments are the parts of the same instrumental cathegory – both the organ and the bagpipe are wind instruments. As the sound of the organ refreshes the tone of the bagpipe, makes it more intensive and more expressive, and so does the bagpipe with the organ.

The most important in musical co-production is to understand the musical world of the partner, and to find the meeting points through which a new, common world can be created. One of the most evident examples of this is the dance rhythm. There are folk-based dance rythms in the classical music – f,or example in Bach’s works, but the rhythm of dance is so closely connected with dance as a physical exercise that it cannot be learned from written music. The written rhythms can express the original dance rythms only incompletely. Folk musicians learn the rhythm by accompanying dancers or by dancing themselves. For example Fassang can learn this from Dongó’s music – the real rhythm of dance. One of the most exciting parts of the concert is when Dongó plays a Moldovan folk dance, then we could hear a Bach opus written in gigue rhythm played by Fassang. Gigue was a well-known and famous dance fom in the past. Dongó’s folk musical ornaments are also “adapted” to the organ by Fassang. These musical elements are natural for a folk musician but they break the frame of sounds that could be reproduced from written music. Dongó can learn interesting things from the organ-player in tone modulations. He tries to perform the organ’s register modulations on his instruments. Fassang’s classical-based improvisations are also really inspiring for Dongó. New harmonies are coming to life on the folk music instrument, the organ is become acquinted from a new aspect. The speciality of the concert is that we can hear an own composition of each musician. The Legénybúcsú ( Stag Night) was written by Fassang in 2004, in the last year of his Paris studies, this is why it is so full of homesickness. For Dongó this is a folk music-inspired theme performed as it could be a folk song. The Erdélyies (Transilvanian) is a composition by Dongó, he adapts Transilvanian rhythms and melodies. Fassang was taken by the special rhythms of the composition which is a real challenge to master for a classical musician.


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