László Simon (16 July 1948 – 9 September 2009) was a
Hungarian pianist.
Professional life
László Simon was born in
Miskolc. He studied under Zoltán Benkö in Budapest, and under
Hans Leygraf in Stockholm and Hannover. He also received artistic and pianistic incitements from
Claudio Arrau in New York. He would later be praised for his excellent performance in international piano competitions Casagrande (1971, 1st place, jointly shared),
Geneva and
Busoni and received the King's Swedish Music Award. His recording of the twelfth ''
Transcendental Études'' by
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
was later part of the evidence in the plagiarism scandal involving recordings by the English pianist
Joyce Hatto (1928-2006), and became more famous as a result of the investigation.
László Simon was a respected piano teacher throughout the world. After working in Darmstadt, Hannover and Karlsruhe, he became a professor at the
Berlin University of the Arts in 1981.
In this position, he mentored the conductress
Shi-yeon Sung as well as the pianists
Gergely Boganyi, Li-Chun Su and
Ji-yeoun You. He died in
Berlin, aged 63.
Press coverage
D.A.W.M.: ''Remarkable Liszt''. In: The Daily Telegraph (1975)
D.A.W.M.: ''László Simon''. In: The Daily Telegraph (Feb. 1977)
Dominic Gill: ''Laszlo Simon''. In: London Financial Times (1977)
References
External links
CD Collection ''László Simon IN MEMORIAM''Recordings of Laszlo Simon from BIS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Laszlo
1948 births
2009 deaths
Hungarian classical pianists
Male classical pianists
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century Hungarian male musicians
People from Miskolc
Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts