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Smålands
Posten, 4 August 2003
(Regional newspaper)
Brilliant
Gypsy Music at the House of Emigrants
A Frenchman
and a Yugoslav living in the US played gypsy music from the Balkans for
Swedish listeners. What an incredible cultural mixture! Pure ‘Multi-kulti’
that would have delighted Integration Minister Mona Salin.
Two young
and extremely talented musicians with a classical education in their background
performed on Saturday evening in the House of Emigrants.
One of them, Mathieu Névéol, played the violin, and the
other, Marko Petričić, took charge of the accordion.
They are virtuosos in their essence that succeeded in waking to life authentic,
if somewhat stylized, dances and songs taken from the Balkan lands’
rich folklore.
They played, among other things, Bulgarian dances, whose ‘blended
rhythms’ (2+2+3+2+2) transported one to thoughts of typical ‘ganka’
rhythms.
The renowned gypsy musician Grigoras Dinicus’s ‘Hora staccato’
was performed with profound feeling for the Romanian temperament.
There are, by the way, not many violinists able to imitate various bird
songs with the same technical virtuosity for which Mathieu Névéol
is known.
Sentimental Hungarian ballads with glissandos and vibrato effects reminded
one of those small, smoky inns in the Hungarian countryside, where the
aroma of apricot schnapps fills the air.
Among the most memorable works were Johannes Brahms’s ‘Hungarian
Dance,’ a soulful ‘Russian Folksong’ with interesting
balaljka imitations, Vittorio Montis’s romantic ‘Csardas,’
the Russian folksong ‘Black Eyes,’ played with the appropriate
melancholy, along with other ‘tug-at-your-heartstrings’ melodies.
These two technically brilliant, spirited, and sensitive soloists succeeded
in offering a concert far beyond the ordinary.
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