Artist database

2 October 1935, Budapest

Worldwide known Hungarian-born British pianist.

He graduated at Ferenc Liszt Music Academy under the guidance of Lajos Hernádi, Zoltán Kodály and Leó Weiner. He emigrated from Hungary in 1958. In the late ’50s he won many international contests, he came in first in Paris (1957, Marguerite Long), in Munich (1957) and in Rio de Janeiro (1959).

His international career started in the ’60s – he debuted 1962 in London, then 1967 in New York with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by György Széll. Subsequently he got requests from the world’s leading orchestras – he was on tour in the U.S. with the Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. He also performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Leipziger Gewandhaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Orchestre de Paris, the Israeli Philharmonic, with all the orchestras of London and numerous other European orchestras as well. He worked together with such famous conductors as Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barbirolli, Boulez, Davis, Doráti, Ferencsik, Fischer, Haitink, Kempe, Kertész, Leinsdorf, Maazel, Masur, Muti, Sanderling, Solti and Széll.

He was on tour in Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He performed more than twenty times on the BBC Promenade concerts in London, besides he is a frequent guest on the festivals of Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Aspen, Chautauqua, Hollywood Bowl, Marlboro, Norfolk, Ravinia, Santa Fé, Verbier and Kuhmo. Of his numerous performances in Edinburgh emerges the concert when he played Britten’s Piano concerto, conducted by the composer himself. On the Bukarest Enescu Festival – co-operated with the Budapest Festival Orchestra – he performed at one of the last concerts of Yehudi Menuhin. His main chamber partners are György Pauk, Péter Csaba, András Schiff, Tamás Vásáry, Ralph Kirshbaum, Kyung Wha Chung, as well as the Bartók, Amadeus, Fine Arts, Lindsay, Guarneri, Borogyin, Tokyo, Panocha, Takács and Vermeer String Quartets.

He first returned to Hungary in the early ’70s and ever since he regularly participates at orchestral, solo and chamber music concerts. He holds master courses all over the world and takes part in the jury of prestigious international contests. He recorded all the piano works by Debussy and Schumann, besides solo works by Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven and Bartók, piano concertos by Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin, chamber works by Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Dvořak, Dohnányi, Martinu and Bartók. In the ’90s there was a record published with the title “Hungarian Anthology”, where pieces by Bartók, Kodály, Weiner and Kurtág were recorded, as well as András Szőllőssy’s Paesaggio con morti, which was dedicated to Péter Frankl.

For the time being he lives in London and teaches as guest professor at the Yale University in the USA. For his artistic performance he was awarded with the Officer’s Cross and Medium Cross of the Hungarian Republic. He is professor emeritus of the Ferenc Liszt Academy.

He was awarded in 2021 Pro Cultura Hunarica Prize.