Szerelemajtók / Love's Doors

„... The soul re-sounds, words sing, love’s doors is ringing”

"This record was born in Bartók’s honour, on the 125th anniversary of his birth. The Budapest Spring Festival asked me to create a piece of music to go on the same program with Bartók’s „Bluebeard’s Castle”. The idea was that Bartók’s sources for this opera – the most beautiful layers of Hungarian folk songs, ballads and instrumental folk music – should be performed by me and my colleagues. Specifically that we should make use of them in our own style, bringing them to life, re-creating our musical tradition. This is how „Lover’s doors” came about; through the balladic world of Bartók’s opera – another story is told in a cycle of seven movements. For help we summoned the dramatic density of folklore’s surreal and symbolic images along with the lively folk music and dance. Though we sing about mythical, poetically named women with fates similar to Judit’s, rather than leading to tragedy, love’s doors lead to hope. The passages neither separate nor conceal, they do not have doors locked with a key; they instead connect the many levels and paths of human feelings and emotions. Re-sounding, they propel our souls out of grief and sorrow into the light; out of misery towards recovery."
Ferenc Kiss