The latest album of one of the most versatile cimbalom artists in the world, Miklós Lukács and his Cimbiosis Trio contains jazz, but there is folk music in its authentic form as well as in Bartókish transfiguration. The ornaments include urban Gypsy music and sometimes the volcanic energies of rock music, and in the logic of the compositions and the complexity of the harmonies hides the whole classical tradition from Bach through Debussy to Kurtág.

One of the charms of Miklós Lukács’s and the Cimbiosis’ musical world: it doesn’t give the listener the facile satisfaction of genre labels. The genres on the Music from the Solitude of Timeless Minutes are no more than posts at the side of the road: they indicate where it’s not worth going. This album contains folk music in traditional form and in Bartókish transfiguration, Gypsy music in the ornamentation, in some places the volcanic energy of rock music erupts, and the entire classical tradition is there too, from Bach through Debussy to Kurtág. The first half of the two-part album is dominated by the metronome-measurable, objective time and familiar musical forms, while in the second part of it Lukács deprives us of our handholds. The last four compositions are dictated by the subjective time, so they melt down like Dali’s clocks, if you try to grasp them with intelligence. In the words of one of the greatest Hungarian poet, Dezso Kosztolányi: “the pulsating heart of volatile time”.

Contemporary music, jazz, and the folk music of different cultures create a perfect symbiosis in the artistry of Miklós Lukács. Several cimbalom pieces have been composed for him as a performer, including Da Capo by Péter Eötvös. He played with such jazz giants as Charles Lloyd, Archie Shepp, Steve Coleman, Bill Frisell, Chris Potter, Uri Caine, and Frank London. His performance can be heard on over 50 albums, a third of which features him as the band leader. He was awarded with the prizes for Hungarian Heritage and Hungarian Arts, in addition to being a two-time Artisjus and Gramofon Award winner. The name of his trio – founded in 2014 – Cimbiosis refers to the musical symbiosis between the members, which in their case is fully realized. György Orbán, one of Hungary’s most engaged and most dynamically playing bass players, is not only open to unexpected music situations, but he generates them, while István Baló – who plays with amazing passion and came from the Hungarian free jazz scene – provides the trio so reliable and still changable grooves, that enables them to realize the most extreme forms of music. So far, Cimbiosis has released three albums at Fonó Records, and with the latest, Lux et Umbra, they have moved on to contemporary chamber music. This is the path taken by BMC Records’ current release of Music from the solitude of timeless minutes, where the role of the score’s five lines are taken over utterly by the attention among the three musicians.