– COMPOSITIONS –

In autumn 2010 in Magyarkanizsa (Kanjiža) in the Vojvodina region of Serbia two authentic mature artists bGyörgy Szabados and Joëlle Léandre, met, realizing a longtime ambition. At this concert the heightened expectations of the audience were palpable, the promise of quality out of the ordinary. The concert has been a topic of conversation ever since.

……………By way of a beginning the piano sprinkled some slow falling rhythms with a vaguely Asian flavour, as if inviting the bass to ‘dance’, which it accepts – thus setting off a modern large-scale piece in a suite form. This long number at times opens out onto a broad cosmic world, and other times withdraws into infinitely refined intimacy. The cries of loneliness erupting from the bass, its rasping pain, and the piano chords that cradle and protect it at times develop into a tempestuous dance, or take wing as a solemn hymn. Between the fearful expectancy of cosmic anxiety and the glad prospect of the Creator’s calm we feel the impulse of this concert. This music, of varying nature, linked to an emotional basis, is difficult to approach with words: from the conjuring up of ringing bells, through elementary sound gestures starting from the secure basis of medieval dotted rhythms through to the childlike simplicity concluding the second piece, it contains so much.

Inner peace, a quiet calm, refinement, humility… – these were the phrases that rose to our lips after the concert. The piano, partly due to the nature of the instrument, held the proportions of the contours and steps in a sure hand, and initiated an aura that, developed jointly, arched from the musicians and the lofty music over the heads of the audience… but now, dear listener, put aside these stumbling words and trust rather your ears and your heart: trust the authentic experience this disc will give you.