"András Berecz is a unique phenomenon and the genre he has recreated in the era of digital literacy is unique. Yet he is not a lone warrior, but a prestigious representative of a movement, a movement that, like many others, has captured and inspired him. [...] It is safe to say that, in addition to Márta Sebestyén's stylistic personality, he is the first male singer to be an authentic, strong-charactered, outstanding master of the archaic singing style. But András Berecz saw folk culture in its universality, its spiritual heritage, when he first got on the train to collect songs from singers like himself. Already at the beginning of the movement, this collecting attitude meant that a nomadic generation, together with the leading performers, was lifting Hungarian traditions from transience into eternity." This is how István Antall began his appreciation of András Berecz's work at the inauguration of the academician candidate at the Magyar Művészeti Akadémia (Hungarian Academy of Arts).
András Berecz was born into a family in which his parents, who were older than average and came from the countryside, preserved and lived in the old world as an island, even amid great historical changes. The mother knew many songs as the daughter of the famous Kunhegyes dancer, prankster and songwriter Gábor Tanka, and the father knew the unquenchable thirst for learning of the rural child from Upper Hungary (Felvidék), which, in addition to the diplomas, was enough to learn ten or so languages. András was captivated not so much by the desire to learn, as by the joy of wonder, by the subtleties of language and music; and on his travels in Transylvania, Moldavia, Upper Hungary, Somogy, Nagykunság and Nyírség he immersed himself in the other world that was opening up before him, to the extent that he himself eventually 'spoke' its language at a 'native' level - both literally and in terms of culture as a whole.
In the urban world around him, this knowledge quickly became 'interesting', coupled with exceptionally credible performance qualities.
After his initial trials and tribulations, at the 1985 Táncház Festival, when he made his first appearance with the Ökrös ensemble in front of an audience of several thousand people, András Berecz burst into the consciousness of the audience of the Táncház gathering as a captivating singer (star) whose songs were sung as 'hits' throughout the country. In addition to the Ökrös ensemble, he soon became a founding member of another formation, the Egyszólam ensemble, representing the purest, most archaic style of folk music.
In this first great period of his work (until the turn of the millennium), he toured the country and the world with his ensembles and was warmly welcomed and appreciated everywhere. He taught Hungarian folk music in Kalotaszentkirály (Sâncraiu, Romania), Jobbágytelke (Sâmbriaș, Romania) and Sopron, at the York University in Toronto, and in summer camps in Canada and the US. In these two decades of the Táncház movement, community was still the essence, and András and his friends took their music directly and modestly from the big stages to the small clubs, often continuing the fun with the audience after the show. They also made recordings: two records each with the Ökrös ensemble, the Egyszólam and the Újstílus ensemble. He has also appeared in several outstanding stage productions, such as the Szegedi Szabadtéri Játékok (Szeged Open Air Festival) and feature films (A másik ember [lit. The Other Man], Eszmélet [Consciousness]). At the same time, György Szomjas and Béla Halmos made two portrait films with Moldavian Csángó singer Anna Jánó and András Gergely, a singer from the Kalotaszeg region (Țara Călatei, Romania) in the shooting of which András was actively involved.
With the second camp (1993) of the Egyszólam ensemble they have created a school by bringing together musicians who preserve and study traditions with elderly informants who are authentic sources of information and are well acquainted with the instrumental and vocal traditions of their region. Their recordings are also immediately made available to the camp participants, so that in the more than 20 years of the camp's existence, a whole generation has grown up under their care and hundreds of people have experienced what it means to learn from the pure source.
In addition to performing, he has always created and presented programmes that required more in-depth research. In 1994-95, with the ensemble Egyszólam, they presented a tribute to Kodály at the Attila József Secondary School, and in 1995 they performed a Háry memorial evening.
As a result of many years of research and meticulous systematic work, in 1997 he published a volume entitled Bú hozza kedv hordozza (lit. Sorrow Brings, Joy Carries), which deals with the 'anthropology' of singing, a field that had hitherto been unexplored by science. As the laudation said: “The natural curiosity that tires away during the semesters in the schools that educate scientists is always fresh in András Berecz's case, ready not for the day, but for the minute or the second. Thus, our collector, the eternal traveller, became aware of details that the greatest: Bartók, Kodály, Vikár, Lajtha, paying attention to the masterpieces and variations of discovery, could not have noticed. András Berecz was attentive to the peculiarities of the rites that lead to the singing of the songs, unique for each artist. He had to notice that the tape recorder was already spinning, but before the song started, the words, gestures and rituals creating the appropriate state of mind were recorded by the machine. From then on, the subtle details of personality traits, the human destinies, the stories that evoked the song – the background material of everyday life and holidays, sorrow and joy layered over generations – had to be considered part of the performance, its essence." The value of the work is shown by the fact that, following the second edition, Akadémiai Kiadó (Academic Publishing House) themselves considered the volume worthy of publication, thus making this unique research a classic.
In 1998, with the ensembles Egyszólam and Kalamajka, they commemorated the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 on the now classic album Megütik a dobot (lit. They Beat the Drum).
Although András Berecz's career has been steadily developing and enriching, moving forward uninterruptedly, and the themes that concern him at the moment are connected like chainlinks, the turn of the millennium can be considered a turning point in his oeuvre, when his first own CD, Kőkertben liliom (lit. Lilies in the Stone Garden), also containing fairy tales, was released. "András Berecz – one of the most knowledgeable experts and performers of Hungarian folk songs and folk tales – always offers much more than a mere aesthetic experience. He is not only an authentic performer, but a true bearer of Hungarian folk art. As a city dweller, the collective ‘folk’ knowledge is an integral part of his life, which provides guidance to him in everyday life and in the big questions of life, offers a foothold: it helps to process individual and more general philosophical problems that have preoccupied humans since the dawn of time. He sings and tells his stories alone, without any accompaniment, in the year of the millennium, in the spirit of the millennium. Our historical knowledge, preserved in the collective unconscious of Hungarians, is revealed by the extremely careful selection and the thoughtfulness of every detail of the performance. Of course, it is not factual history told in chronological order, but the often-recurring life situations and feelings that characterised our people during their long migrations and after their settlement.
The difficulties and often bitterness of setting off on a journey, the constant search for a way, the frequent farewells and uncertain returns are not only a characteristic of the Hungarian fate before the conquest. This sentiment can be clearly felt when listening to melodies and texts with similar moods but belonging to different layers of music and historical periods. The search for truth and the definition of the most basic moral norms, which the Hungarians achieved with the adoption of the Christian religion and the founding of the state, is a universal idea that still has an impact today.” – reads one of the reviews.
The millennium also saw the founding of his company: Berecz Bt., which enabled the artist to become completely independent from the institutions of book and record publishing. Over the years, he has worked and matured new volumes and records at his own pace and to his own high standards in this workshop. His two newer albums are Lily in the Stone Garden (2003, 2013), the Chuvash folk poetry translations and their sung versions of the Rokonok söre (lit. Relatives’ Beer) (2001, 2012), the Szegen csengő (lit. Bell on a Nail) (2004) from Nagykunság, the Sinka-ének (lit. Sinka’s Song) (2006) and the songs from Gyergyó (2012). In the meantime, he has tirelessly toured the country and the isolated groups of Hungarian ethnicities, who live outside the country’s border, mostly with as a one-man show. In 2011, he was deservedly awarded the Kossuth Prize, the highest artistic award in Hungary.
From then on, and thanks to his media appearances, he became well-known not only in Táncház circles, but among all sections of the Hungarian population. He has sold out performances on the most prestigious stages and has been telling stories all over the country.
Meanwhile, even in a world of tabloids and showbiz that has little respect for human dignity, he remains himself, a straight-talking, highly knowledgeable, cathartic, dignified and respectful storyteller who is gentle, friendly and direct at the same time, a teacher who (in the words of Marcell Jankovics) has become so closely associated with our traditions that he is able to create authentic and original works of art in the spirit of the unity of preservation and creation, which make the gems of Hungarian folklore accessible to people all over the world.
[2014]