György Sándor
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György Sándor (; 21 September 1912 – 9 December 2005) was a Hungarian
pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
and writer.


Early years

Sándor was born in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
. He studied at the
Liszt Academy The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music ( hu, Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem, often abbreviated as ''Zeneakadémia'', "Liszt Academy") is a music university and a concert hall in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the ...
in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
under
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
and
Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...
, and debuted as a performer in 1930. He toured as a concert pianist through the 1930s, making his
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
debut in 1939. He became an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
citizen and served in the
Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...
and the Intelligence and Special Services from 1942 to 1944.


Friends with Bartók

Sándor remained friends with Bartók throughout his life, and was one of only ten people who attended Bartók's funeral in 1945. Sándor played the premiere of Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 on 8 February 1946 with the
Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...
conducted by
Eugene Ormandy Eugene Ormandy (born Jenő Blau; November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association wit ...
in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. The performance was repeated on 26 February 1946 by the same ensemble in Carnegie Hall, New York, and recorded for Columbia Masterworks in April 1946.


Concert artist

Following
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he returned to the concert stage. His technique was described as "Lisztian" and his repertoire universal, although later in his career his playing of Bartók was much in demand. Initially he recorded numerous piano works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Schumann and others for Columbia Masterworks. Then with Vox, he recorded the complete works for solo piano of Zoltán Kodály and of
Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, p ...
; and the complete piano works of Béla Bartók; for the latter he won the
Grand Prix du Disque Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and commu ...
of the Charles Cros Academy in 1965.


Family

In 1950 he married Christa, née Satzger de Bálványos, the divorced wife of
Archduke Karl Pius of Austria Archduke Karl Pius of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Prince of Tuscany (4 December 1909 – 24 December 1953), known as Carlos Pío de Habsburgo-Lorena y de Borbón in Spanish, was a member of the Tuscan branch of the Imperial H ...
. They had one son, Michael, and were divorced.


Teaching

Sándor taught at the
Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...
, then at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
from 1961 to 1981, and from 1982, at the
Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...
. He continued to teach and perform into his nineties. His pupils included
Hélène Grimaud Hélène Rose Paule Grimaud (born 7 November 1969) is a French classical pianist and the founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. Early life and education Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. She described famil ...
,
Deniz Arman Gelenbe Deniz may refer to: * Deniz (given name), Turkish given name * Deniz (surname), surname both of Spanish-Portuguese and Turkish origins * Denizköy (disambiguation), one of a number of villages in Turkey {{Disambiguation ...
,
György Sebők György Sebők (November 2, 1922 – November 14, 1999) was a Hungarian-born American pianist and professor at the Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. He was known worldwide as a soloist with major ...
,
Aleksandra Romanić Aleksandra Romaniċ was born 1958 in Zagreb into a family of musicians. She was awarded a scholarship at the age of sixteen to go to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She graduated in 1981 summa cum laude. Completing her master's degree, she wa ...
,
Christina Kiss Christina may refer to: People * Christina (given name), shared by several people * Christina (surname), shared by several people Places * Christina, Montana, unincorporated community, United States * Christina, British Columbia, Canada * Chr ...
,
Barbara Nissman Barbara Nissman (born December 31, 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist. She is especially known for her interpretations and performances of the works of Alberto Ginastera and Sergei Prokofiev which feature prominently in he ...
,
Ian Pace Ian Geoffrey Pace (born 1968) is a British pianist. Pace studied at Chetham's School of Music, The Queen's College, Oxford and the Juilliard School in New York City, New York. His main teacher was the Hungarian pianist György Sándor. Repertoi ...
,
Ljuba Moiz Ljuba may refer to: * Ljuba (given name), a Slavic given name * Ljuba, Serbia, a village in Syrmia, Vojvodina * 1062 Ljuba 1062 Ljuba, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous background asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, a ...
,
Jungwon Jin Jungwon may refer to: * Jungwon-gyeong, former name of Chungju, North Chungcheong, South Korea when it was a sub-capital during the United Silla dynasty * Jungwon Province, one of the former provinces of Korea under the United Silla and Goryeo Dyn ...
, Derek Wieland, Charis Dimaras,
fortepiano A fortepiano , sometimes referred to as a pianoforte, is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Mo ...
performer
Malcolm Bilson Malcolm Bilson (born October 24, 1935) is an American pianist and musicologist specializing in 18th- and 19th-century music. He is the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music in Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Bilson is one of the foremost playe ...
, renowned teacher, Dr. J.D. Kelly, and composers
Ezequiel Viñao Ezequiel Viñao (born July 21, 1960 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine- American composer. He emigrated to the United States in 1980 and studied at the Juilliard School. His compositions include ''La Noche de las Noches'' (1989) for string quartet ...
, and Donald Bohlen.


Honorary degree

In 1996
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
awarded Sándor an honorary doctorate.


Manuscripts and published works

He wrote a book "On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound, Expression", published by Schirmer Books, which is one of the most rational and clear accounts of piano technique. ''"Today more than ever, audiences mistake the excessively tense muscular activities of the performer for an intense musical experience, and all too often we see the public impressed and awed by convulsive distortions and spastic gyrations."'' Writing in
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
newspaper, Leo Black commented "musical performance desperately needs the sense of rightness, completeness and economy that pervaded his playing and thinking". "On Piano Playing" details approaches to many problems that pianists face. Sándor emphasized the use of
gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
, an endless source of energy, during playing. Ideas on memorizing are also addressed. Importantly,"On Piano Playing" corrects these common misconceptions: pianists only play with their fingers and only a few have the physical ability to play the piano. A manuscript of a book on his mentor Béla Bartók and his music remains unpublished. He produced several piano transcriptions, including a fantastically difficult arrangement of
The Sorcerer's Apprentice "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (german: "Der Zauberlehrling", link=no, italic=no) is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in 14 stanzas. Story The poem begins as an old magician (fantasy), sorcerer departs his ...
by Dukas (pub. 1950), and the first two movements (''Tempo di Ciaccona'' and ''Fuga'') of Bartók's Sonata for Solo Violin (first perf. New York 1975; pub. 1977). He also edited and published Bartók's own unpublished piano arrangement (made in January 1944) of the Concerto for Orchestra, at the request of the composer's son in 1985. It was published in 2001, and has been recorded by Sándor. Sándor wrote in his introduction to the edition: "It was agreed that the primary goal would not be to make the piano score easier to play, but to make it playable at all. Furthermore, since Bartók's piano score contains only the first ending of the last movement, my role was to provide a reading for the second (alternative) ending. Bartók wrote the second ending to avoid the rather abrupt conclusion of this grandiose work, and this is now accepted as the standard version of the last movement." He also edited the works for solo piano of Sergei Prokofiev.


Death

He died in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
of
heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...
at age 93.


Media


György Sándor plays Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, transcription for piano

György Sándor plays Bach-Liszt Fantasy & Fugue in G minor


References

*Sándor, György. (1995). ''"On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound and Expression"''. Boston, MA: Schirmer.


External links



by Bruce Duffie, February, 1990 *, WNCN-FM, 10 August 1982 *, WNCN-FM, 24 June 1983 * http://pastdaily.com/2015/06/10/gyorgy-sandor-piano-recital-at-wncn-1983-past-daily-mid-week-concert/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandor, Gyorgy 1912 births 2005 deaths Hungarian classical pianists Male classical pianists Hungarian emigrants to the United States Juilliard School faculty Franz Liszt Academy of Music alumni Pupils of Béla Bartók Pupils of Zoltán Kodály 20th-century classical pianists Musicians from Budapest University of Michigan faculty 20th-century Hungarian male musicians