"Portrait of a musician. These recordings introduce Géza Potta and his music, a rural Gypsy violinist (prímás) from a village in Abaúj a region of south-eastern Slovakia. He is the kind of musician that could have been found once in their hundreds in the Carpathian Basin. These musicians spent their whole lives serving and entertaining their village audiences. The repertoire of Géza Potta represents a kind of 'musical multilingualism'. During a wedding party the authentic folk tunes and the 'new style' (composed in folk style) tunes sat well together side by side. And completely different repertoire was played to accompany the celebrations of, for example the Slovak and the Gypsy guests. In this respect, this album endeavours to portray a complete picture, in which every different musical culture is important. After all, a musician, a village 'informant', is not a nameless individual who only 'provides information', but a creative artist who produces something new and unique from the musical tools at their disposal, weaving their own personality and musicianship into their performance. This is especially true of Géza Potta's violin playing. His confident and virtuosic playing and wonderful singing quickly cast a spell of cheerfulness over any gathering.
Taken from the CD notes, written by: Péter Árendás. Budapest, March 2003.
- Géza Potta– violin, vocals
- Ferenc Jano– second violin accompaniment
- Béla Ádám– cimbalom, vocals
- Géza Dzsuga– viola
- János Badó – viola
- Elemér Badó – double bass
Music compiled by: Péter Árendás