Description
Fonó: Kallós Zoltán — Idegen Földre Ne Siess..., Fonó Records (Audio CD, 1997)
In VERY GOOD condition! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details
- UPC: 5998048504824
- Catalog Number: FA-048-2
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Fonó Records, Inc.
- Artist: Kallós Zoltán (voice/ének)
- Title: Idegen földre ne siess... / Don't Bend Your Steps Towards Any Foreign Land...
- Subtitle: Erdélyi magyar népzene / Hungarian Folk Music from Transylvania
- Release Year: 1997
- Genre: World Music / Folk
- Style: Hungarian folk music, Transylvanian traditional, ethnomusicology
- Recorded at: Fonó Budai Zeneház Studio, Budapest
- Supported by: Nemzeti Kulturális Alap (National Cultural Fund)
- Musical Producer: Kelemen László
- Recording Engineer: Szalai László
- Producer: László Sándor
Product Features
- Format: Standard jewel case CD
- Tracks: 9
- Language: Hungarian / bilingual packaging (Hungarian–English)
- Accompanying ensembles: Ökrös együttes (tracks 2, 3, 7); Téka együttes (tracks 4, 8, 9); additional guests
- Instruments: fiddle (hegedű), 3- and 4-string viola (brácsa), bass (bőgő), cimbalom, whistle (furulya)
- Condition: Very Good — disc and packaging in excellent used condition
- Manufactured: Hungary (HYTCD), BIEM-ARTISJUS
Overview
Kallós Zoltán (born 1926 in Válaszút, near Cluj/Kolozsvár) is one of the foundational figures of Hungarian ethnomusicology — a collector, singer, and guardian of Transylvanian Hungarian folk tradition who spent decades in the field recording village musicians and singers across Transylvania and Moldova under conditions of considerable personal risk during the communist period. His collections formed a significant part of the folk revival movement in Hungary from the 1970s onward, and his personal story — his family's classification as "kulák," his removal from teaching, his years of harassment by Romanian authorities, his continued field work through it all — is inseparable from the music he preserved.
Idegen földre ne siess... ("Don't bend your steps towards any foreign land...") is dedicated, as the booklet states, to all those who have left or wish to leave their homeland — a dedication that carries particular weight given Kallós's lifelong commitment to documenting the culture of Hungarian communities living outside Hungary's borders. The 9 tracks present Transylvanian Hungarian folk songs in Kallós's own voice, accompanied by two of Hungary's finest folk ensembles: the Ökrös együttes and the Téka együttes, alongside individual guests including cimbalom master Balogh Kálmán and flautist Juhász Zoltán.
The recording was made at the Fonó Budai Zeneház, the Budapest venue and label that became the institutional home of the Hungarian folk revival, and produced by Kelemen László — himself a distinguished folk musician and producer. The result is an unusually intimate document: an elderly master singer performing the songs he spent his life collecting, backed by musicians who grew up in the tradition he helped transmit.
Interesting Facts
- Kallós Zoltán received the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest cultural honour, as well as the Életfa díj (1990), Magyar Művészetért, Julianus, Pro Minoritate, and Martin György awards — a recognition of a career that outlasted both the communist regime and the political conditions that had repeatedly suppressed his work.
- The Kallós Zoltán Alapítvány (Foundation), established in 1992, continues to support traditional culture preservation across the Hungarian-speaking communities of Transylvania and Moldova.
- Balogh Kálmán, who plays cimbalom on tracks 3 and 7, is one of the most internationally recognized Hungarian folk and jazz musicians; his cimbalom work here connects the village tradition Kallós documented to the concert-hall folk revival.
- The Ökrös együttes and Téka együttes were among the leading bands of the Hungarian táncház (dance house) movement — the revival of authentic village music and dance that began in Budapest in the early 1970s, partly inspired by Kallós's own field recordings.
- The bilingual title and packaging — Hungarian and English throughout — reflects Fonó Records' deliberate positioning of this release for international ethnomusicology and world music audiences as well as Hungarian listeners.
- Kallós began his collecting work in the 1950s in Moldovan csángó villages near Bacău; his friendship and fieldwork partnership with Martin György across Transylvania's Mezőség and Kalotaszeg regions produced some of the most important archives of Hungarian folk music ever assembled.
Track Listing
9 tracks. Individual track titles are not printed on the back cover; full titles appear in the booklet. Accompanying ensembles per track: Ökrös együttes (tracks 2, 3, 7) / Téka együttes (tracks 4, 8, 9) / Székely Levente fiddle (track 9) / Balogh Kálmán cimbalom (tracks 3, 7) / Juhász Zoltán whistle (track 6). Track 1 is unaccompanied or with minimal accompaniment.
Full individual track titles available in the enclosed booklet.
Publishers
© 1997 Fonó Records, Inc. H-1116 Budapest, Sztrégova u. 3. BIEM-ARTISJUS. Supported by Nemzeti Kulturális Alap. Made by HYTCD.
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