When Christian Paccoud begins singing to the accompaniment of his PIERMARIA accordion, we feel that we are on top of a volcano that is about to erupt. Like Tamás Cseh or Vladimir Visocky, the French singer is one of the poet-songwriters who can tune our ears to the weeping, dream-like piano melodies of the poor and the lively tango music of the rebellious. His songs present everyday life, served with a wry sense of humour, mingled with irony and self-reference, taking us into the atmosphere of the Parisian cabaret. 

Lajos Pál has almost all of the Hungarian wedding songs and wedding music safely stored away in his fingers, and he is not miserly with his wealth. If asked, he takes his beautiful instrument in hand andlifts us with his melodies from one fantastic land to another. He is a musician and scholar who has passed on his learning to generations of musicians, his innumerable students, who live all over the country.

The two accordion players have worked together on a production of Novarina’s Imaginary Operetta. Rehearsals often stretched into the night and early morn and led to fruitful exchanges of ideas next to the snack bar in the Debrecen theatre. We will conjure with this casual music-making.

(14 March 2016)