Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén

Together Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén have made it their cause to reclaim traditional Hungarian folk music, which disappeared through the dislocation and repression of the Second World War and the restrictive regimes that followed. Their search led them to the legendary district of Transylvania-which is to Hungary what the Deep South is to America-where they took great pains to learn, in its pure form, the music they found. Muzsikás and Márta now base their music repertoire on the haunting melodies and dances they discovered, and the popularity of Muzsikás' two recent albums, Maramos-the Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania (1993) and Morning Star (1997), clearly demonstrates that the public is begging for the genuine article. Márta Sebestyén, with "one of those voices that sounds centuries old on a haunting love-stricken ballad" (Q Magazine), may be most widely known as the voice of The English Patient, though she was actually discovered long before that. At the age of 12, she received a prize for folk singing from the great Hungarian composer and music educator Zoltan Kodaly. Muzsikás has also had a long career, most of the members starting as part of a dance troupe in the early '70s. Even now, the group often travel with a duo of dancers, Zoltan Farkas and Ildiko Toth. Mihaly Sipos plays the lead violin, and Laszlo Porteleki, second fiddle. Daniel Hamar plays bass, hammer dulcimer and hit-garden (a cross between a cello and a drum). Violist Peter Eri completes the line-up.

  -- AK