Zoltán Kocsis News
(1952–2016) classical pianist, conductor and composer
- piano
- classical music
- Hungary
- classical pianist, conductor, composer, music teacher, pianist
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2024-03-27
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2023-12-18 15:57:45
Three Pianists, December 2023
[…] the Leeds which we mentioned above, all he got was a shared fourth prize at the 1974 Tchaikovsky competition (the 18-year-old Andrei Gavrilov was the winner; a talented pianist, he had an interesting but brief career, which in its significance could not be compared to Schiff’s). András Schiff was born into a Jewish family in Budapest. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music there (György Kurtág was one of his professors and Zoltán Kocsis, who studied there at the same time, became a friend). He also took summer classes with Tatiana Nikolayeva and Bella Davidovich. Since the late 1980s he, like Uchida, has been living in London, and like her, was knighted (in 2014). Schiff is one of the most admired pianists of his generation; he feels comfortable in many venues: he plays recitals and concertos, loves ensemble playing, and often accompanies singers. His Bach is wonderful, but […]
2023-10-06 13:18:07
Recently, I retrieved the CD and stereo, playing Haydn Variations performed by Zoltán Kocsis and Dez
2022-09-28 18:47:00
Wigmore Hall Brahms, arr. Busoni: Chorale Preludes, BV B 50 Fred Hersch: Variations on a Folk Song Wagner, arr. Kocsis: Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act I Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178 Igor Levit (piano) A typically thoughtful programme, brilliantly performed, from Igor Levit: the second half reprising that of his Salzburg recital in August, the first quite different, yet forming an equally coherent whole. First we heard the six of Brahms’s eleven late organ chorale preludes Busoni arranged for piano in 1902. The first, ‘Herzlich tut mich erfreuen’, rightly announced itself paradoxically, or better dialectically, both emphatically as piano music and yet also as ‘letting the music speak for itself’, in that most necessary of clichés. Musical processes behind and beneath the melody revealed two—sorry, three—great minds at work. Brahms’s arpeggiated half-lights emerged, as if from his own piano music; they were never imposed. That attentiveness […]
2022-08-25 16:11:00
Grosses Festspielhaus Bartók: Out of Doors, Sz 81 Schumann: Waldszenen, op.82 Wagner, arr. Zoltán Kocsis: Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act I Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178 Igor Levit (piano)Image: SF / Marco BorrelliFor this Salzburg Festival recital, Igor Levit offered a programme of piano music—and, in one case, orchestral music transcribed for the piano—rich in connections explicit and implicit, and beautifully balanced too. Programming is in many ways an art in itself, yet not of course quite in itself: the music needs to be performed at least as compellingly as it has been assembled. There was little problem in that respect here, given performances that never took the works in question for granted, always looked—and listened—afresh. Bartók’s Out of Doors suite was a welcome choice to open. The drums and pipes of the opening piece gave neither pianist nor audience time to adjust. Poundingly percussive from the […]
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