László Melis: "Black and White" reconsiles Tradition with Evolution

Hungarian Composer László Melis has joined forces with Pianist Zoltán Lengyel for an album of Piano magic. Aptly titled “Black & White”, the record consists of a Suite for Solo Piano comprising 15 short tracks, which can be regarded as dealing with the issue of old vs new and with preserving what has proven its worth, while respecting the necessity to destroy conventions to make way for something different. “We can’t live without Johann Sebastian, and we might even be proud of this, but Johann Sebastian doesn’t solve our problems”, László Vidovszky writes in his strident liner notes, which namedrop both Perotinus and Paris Hilton, “The anti-traditionalist movements of the twentieth century have now floundered into the trap of their own tradition, and it’s understandable if they try to retreat. Performing artists (perhaps out of mere laziness?) saw back in the sixties that the future of music is in its own past, and now composers too have subscribed (but why indeed?) to this patent idiocy. All is interference, arrangement, quotation technique, comment, reminiscence, stylistic traits, synthesis, re-interpretation, and so forth.” In this turmoil, László Melis’ concentrated path in the middle between the extremes, according to Vidovszky, must be seen as a real chance to arrive at fruitful results.