Having a cimbalom was quite common in wealthier Hungarian bourgeois families in the last century. The lady of the house frequently played cimbalom with the instrument finding its place beside or instead of the piano. In spite of the long-standing popularity of the instrument it is quite rare to be able to listen to cimbalom duets. Although Kálmán Balogh and Miklós Lukács fairly regularly perform in duos independently, they started playing together only recently on the initiative of the label. The album for the most part contains the compositions of Miklós and transcriptions which are based on folk music sources suggested by Kálmán. The two musicians built this production on the foundations of the playing style of the 'strongholds' of Hungarian and Romanian cimbalom playing (the Szatmár and Székelyföld regions) and the interpretations of famous cimbalom players such as Pál Tendl from Sopron.
That Kálmán and Miklós established such a rapport was not unexpected, since although they move in different professional circles, a lot of parallels can be detected in their careers. For more than twenty years Kálmán Balogh has been playing together with countless formations of the best Hungarian folk musicians, while at the same time he has frequently made excursions into the realms of classical music, jazz and rock music both at
home and abroad. Miklós Lukács has also tried his hand at several musical genres, most notably jazz and ethno-music.

Kálmán Balogh - cimbalom
Miklós Lukács - cimbalom