I.

Silence.

Deep silence.
Deep silence in someone.
Dense, rich, deep silence of Being in someone.

Sound.

Sonorous, ringing clear sound.
Dense, rich, deep silence of Being giving birth to a clear sound in someone.

Silence.

Deep silence.
Deep silence in someone.
Dense, rich, deep silence of Being giving birth to a clear sound, drawing someone’s attention.

This is how the creation and reception of music could be related in ideal times. But our times are not ideal in this respect either, our world is rather uproarious, polluted by noise. Silence is marginalized. Silence is dangerous, for one might lend an ear to thoughts of one's own. Silence is dangerous, for the deeply introverted soul withdraws from the affects of the noise regime.

It is when the soul finds peace within and without that the deeply moral reflection on Being can be expressed through sound. We live in an undividable sound universe which includes the rustle of a falling petal as well as the cosmic scream of a star disappearing in the black hole. It is one of the most ordinary events that a sound should develop and die and still, by virtue of its emergence, enters –more precisely– invokes Being. The system of vibrations that make up the Universe, the effects and counter effects of its perpetual whirling, are not all accessible to human senses or reason. Like unconscious unicellular beings, we add sounds to this system, and remain indifferent to the responsibility involved. For God, presumably all oscillations are in real time, with all their implied consequences. At the moment of producing a sound – or refraining from doing so -- it has also been preordained whether our sound dissolves into the harmony of Being or becomes part of the noise curtain that forecloses Being. There is no algorithm to guide us in producing a sound with responsibility and the likelihood of a random hit is rather low. But it is, after all, not for us, from the dust and the mud, to make the absolutely impossible calculation on the consequences of a sound. Rather, we have to turn with faith, pure soul, spiritual openness to the perspective from which all appears evident and clear. Even though we cannot comprehend Totality, it captivates us as the gift of an eternal secret, its sparks and splinters give rise to our conjectures about it. Language falls to its knees, disintegrates. Conjectures can only be communicated via media that transgress concepts locked in words. For instance via music. Via the pure sound born from the dense, rich, deep silence of Being.

II.

Major original artists are in fact thinkers, who express their views about Being and the world in various forms. For István Grencsó and Barnabás Dukay, the primary form of expression is music – even though both of them write poetry, and also essays and prose in the case of Dukay. The publication under the title, Essays, documents their collaboration started in November 2015 and is a collection of musical treatises. Since their first encounter, Dukay and Grencsó have transmitted their musical messages from a shared spiritual space. The common feature of these materials is that from the very first to the very last note, they are free improvisations, without the traditional rhythm section of jazz. In recent years, Grencsó, closely intertwined with Dukay intellectually and spiritually, surpassed the loose boundaries of avant-garde/free jazz to enter new, untrodden territory of style and genre. The new genre is yet to be labeled: it is to cover a compact texture of peculiar, unmistakable sounds, which amount to what might probably be called free chamber music, related both to free jazz as well as contemporary music.

In the studio recording of Waiting, the acoustic duo of piano and reeds is enriched by the electric piano sound patterns of István Kovács Tickmayer who had made music with Grencsó since the 1980s. Due to its beauty and mood, its etherealized musical texture, it recalls Things Left At Ebb Tide (HRCD 1607) as if they were twins. The accord of musicians is perfect, the musical motif advanced by one of them is enriched by new harmonies, then confronted by counterpoints, taken apart, and kneaded. There is no idle note nor moment of boredom -- the music surges, changes unpredictably, driving the attentive listener above gorgeous landscapes.

The duo of organ and sax is a rather rare if existing line-up, but their nearly 45 minutes of free improvisation, lacking any composed elements, is certainly unique. The material of Ritual Music is thick, solid and dense, absorbs you and does not let go. Dukay exploits the potentials of the organ from tinkling and whistling to thundering. The sax plays around cadences, and at times together they dissolve free music sound storms into hymnal melodies. They raise you, they break you, they pour you into new shape. The titles are puzzling: you find their meaning when you read them vertically. The live recording was made at the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Budapest, on 4 November, 2016, on the 60th anniversary of the bloody suppression of the 1956 revolution. The music ends without absolution: there is only retreat, tongue-tied silence, pain.

In the live recording of Two Visions Heard, the duo of Dukay and Grencsó is joined by Aurél Holló who adds a new color to the sound via his instruments (chiefly percussion) drawn from various musical cultures, and by his experience in several musical styles. When the trio met for the first time, it was immediately evident that they blended well. Dukay plays solos that reap laurels as free piano play, bringing you to awe, while at other times he embraces the others with lovely melodies. Grencsó joyfully radiates gorgeous sounds, and Holló swings the music forth mobilizing his arsenal of percussion, adding a variety of rhythms, down-beats, blowing shells and whistling. The miracle of real time composition comes into being, whose harmonies would be envied by many composers. The trio exhibits a high level of concentration and mutual attention, turning their music to novel directions, playfully invoking diverse styles, whilst the music flows without a moment of interruption, hesitation or rummaging, all is in place. This CD is the most unrestricted out of three – the audience at Opus Jazz Club enjoyed a real uplifiting musical experience.

The musical essays of the collection’s three CDs reveal diverse faces of a unique, unitary, autonomous world. We have evidence of how it is possible to deliver a message on Wholeness, to give a sound with ultimate responsibility, humility, creatively contributing to Creation and avoiding the destruction of Being.

Silence. Dense, rich, deep silence captivates the sensitive listener after the experience of knowing.

Translated by Katalin Füzér