This album is my most personal creation: sometimes gentle, sometimes flamboyant, sometimes allowing insight into surprisingly intimate realms, sometimes a revealing, sincere confession in music. From the first note to the last, it is improvisation. It is the germination of many long-cherished musical ideas, matured in my inner ear, the imprint of so many musical inspirations and life experiences, and as such, I intend it to be free of all manner of self-serving virtuoso instrumental solutions, lightning tempos, artful compositional and improvisational techniques - every moment of it was conceived in a spirit of humility towards Music. This is what the playing of a host of instruments serves to do, even if it sometimes seems otherwise. I am not guided by the "...and here's another" attitude of the music clown; simply, these are the sounds and colours I hear inside, for which I seek out the right tool, and if this resonates with listeners, they will also feel that the piece in question had to be played on that particular instrument.

         All of my albums so far have been brought to life by the most typical form of jazz performance, joint music-making with the exacting standards of chamber music, and I have written most of my compositions bearing in mind particular bands, and the excellent fellow musicians that play in them. I have always enjoyed the musical freedom of my occasional solo concerts, which for a wind instrumentalist is after all an unusual situation to perform in, and although I have long been toying with the idea of recording this, I was waiting for the moment when I could no longer keep it to myself. Listening to the result, I'm glad I didn't rush into it; I had to mature and rise to the task, both personally and artistically. And if this time listeners discern a more pronounced presence of the intellectual‒emotional side in my playing, they have already grasped the key to decoding the messages I have woven in sound.

Thanks be to the Creator that this album could come into being. S.D.G.

1. Invocation - Thank You Lord, for trying!
I was doubt-ridden, and you strengthened my faith - for that, I am grateful.

2. Blood in the Veins
Slovak-Hungarian shepherd friendship. A dialogue between two fujaras ‒ my heart beats, now my Slavic ancestors speak, and in the most natural way my other self joins them: my Hungarian heart, hiding in the tárogató and improvisations.
Full-bloodied “agrarian jazz” - danceable, folky, groovy, and cheerful.

3. Looking Back from Half Way
This improvisation was inspired not only by one of the best-known Hungarian folk songs collected by Bartók, but equally by the Maestro's imagined gaze (about which Aladár Tóth wrote: "it is as if, within him, humanity is opening its eyes for the first time"), as he looks back at the audience intoning the folk song that starts “Elindultam széphazámból” (I set out from my beautiful homeland) to bid him farewell at the end of his last concert in Budapest before he emigrated.  Even if it was just a legend, it is beautiful, plausible, and inspiring - so it was easy to extemporize in the spirit of Bartók.

4. Jolting-chortling
Bass clarinet and tilinkó ‒ a modern, sophisticated instrument and one of the simplest instruments in the world, the Moldavian Csango version of the overtone flute. An unusual marriage, though to me evident and natural.

5. Mishi, where are you going?
These words still ring in my ears, even though there is no longer anyone to say them…

6. Pomáz-Budapest Counterpoint
The title, of course, refers to Steve Reich's piece New York Counterpoint, in which clarinets play the leading role. The nature of the composition had already taken shape in my mind, and I came up with the repetitive part-writing while travelling to the recording session on a 10 or 12 minute section of the journey from Pomáz to Budapest. The soprano saxophone solo has a minimalist vibe to begin with, and then of course sometimes, "it can't help itself".

7. Sprinter's Solitude
This improvisation evolved from the iconic opening motif of Dave Liebmann's solo album “The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner.” It is dedicated to one of the greatest masters of the soprano saxophone: “a message to Lieb”.

8. Dvojnice²
The mathematics of the double flute ‒ that's what you get when you have two of them.

9. Bass Clarinet Fantasia
Recently, the bass clarinet has become one of my favorite instruments. I hope this is apparent in the piece.

10. Ghimeș Mood
A single flute - improvisation in the footsteps of the wonderful Ghimeș maestros.

11. Silences and Cries
Extreme emotional and dynamic fluctuations, calm, peace, rebellion, and frenzy ‒ this too is I.

12.    Counterpoint, period
I always found it inspiring to create contrapuntal improvisations with skilled colleagues. I wondered if I would be able to sustain dialogue with myself. I tried: sometimes we understood each other easily, sometimes it was more difficult.

13. Kaval Dance
Making merry with kavals.

14. My Eyelashes Close on You
Silence ‒ nighttime ‒ loneliness ‒ the tears of men.

Mihály Borbély

Translated by Richard Robinson