Dániel Benkő is perhaps mid-Europe's best kept musical secret, a virtuoso equally at home playing bossa novas on a classical guitar, or gracefully rendering the masterpieces of the Renaissance and the Baroque era on period instruments. Best known for recording complete works of Hungary's Valentin Bakfark (a lutenist who worked in France and Poland), Benkő's On Seven Instruments remains all but completely unknown and unavailable in the United States.

One cannot fully appreciate the breadth of Benkő's achievement without understanding something about the seven instruments on which he plays. While the lute and the guitar in its modern and baroque incarnations are household words, the orpharion, vihuela, bandora, and chitarrone including the lightly strung five-course baroque guitar demand a particularly high level of technical mastery, which is one of the reasons why the lute and its wire-strung cousins fell out of favor by the time of Mozart. To play one or two of these technically challenging instruments is no mean task. But to play all seven at a virtuoso level is nothing less than remarkable.

Often Benkő's selection of instruments is not only creative but downright inspired. For example, among the selections is the second movement of Vivaldi's concerto for two mandolins, here triple-tracked on two classical guitars rather than mandolins, with a shimmering orpharion substituting for the harpsichord. Like all good musicians, Benkő knows when to shine as a soloist and when to take a backseat as an accompanist, as he does on a series of delightful renaissance dances where a consort led by a recorder takes the melody line and Benkő uses the lute to provide a tasteful continuo backing.

(Taken from http://www.renaissancemagazine.com/music/benko.html written by Marc Cramer © 1999 with minor editing to spelling, BBCode and structure by David Kosmak) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.