"When I have created my trio, my goal was to do what no one has ever done before: play traditional Hungarian cimbalom music. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Where is the trouvaille? Let me explain. There are a few cimbalom bands in Hungary, but they all play some sort of fusion of Balkan and pop or jazz, although cimbalom is an original Hungarian instrument. Indeed, Hungary is not part of the Balkan region. This simple idea to play traditional Hungarian cimbalom music, turned out to be a significant task, which assumed a lot of learning and much work to be done.

I was fortunate to meet the last tradition bearers in rural villages of Pannonia, the Carpathians, the Great Hungarian plane and Transylvania, speak to them, see them perform, learn from them, and just be with them. And I am grateful for the field researchers like Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha and many others, who recorded music in the last century, preserving and passing on old traditions to the younger generations. I studied the music archives to find the gems-- pieces of cimbalom music-- that define my own work. This record that you hold in your hand is my treasury, a collection of my most beautiful findings.
Cimbalom has a wide instrument family it has local versions from Chine to Ireland. These are all small instruments that one can hold in one’s lap. The instrument family probably originates from the Middle East, arrived to Hungary cc. five centuries ago. But in the 1870s an inventor called József V. Schunda developed the cimbalom made it chromatic, added bass strings and sustain pedal for it. It became huge and heavy, so he put it on legs: with that, the great Hungarian concert cimbalom was born. It became very popular in Hungary, later in the Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Moldavia and many other countries.

Sometimes when I play the cimbalom, I have a feeling of history. Tradition means to pass on knowledge from one person to another through time. I see a chain of musicians holding hands and finally holding my hand. This music is my tradition."

(Bálint Tárkány-Kovács)

Tárkány-Kovács Bálint – cimbalom
Fekete Márton – brácsa
és Molnár Péter – bőgő