László Simon (16 July 1948 – 9 September 2009) was a Hungarian

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

Professional life

László Simon was born in

Miskolc Miskolc ( , ; ; Czech language, Czech and ; ; ; ) is a city in northeastern Hungary, known for its heavy industry. With a population of 161,265 as of 1 January 2014, Miskolc is the List of cities and towns in Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, ...

. He studied under Zoltán Benkö in Budapest, and under

Hans Leygraf Hans Leygraf (7 September 1920 – 12 February 2011) was a Swedish pianist, music educator, conductor and composer. Life Born in Stockholm, Leygraf studied piano with in Stockholm and Anna Hirzel-Langenhan in Switzerland. He was one of Swede ...

in Stockholm and Hannover. He also received artistic and pianistic incitements from

Claudio Arrau Claudio Arrau León (; February 6, 1903June 9, 1991) was a Chilean and American pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque music, baroque to 20th-century classical music, 20th-century composers, especially B ...

in New York. He would later be praised for his excellent performance in international piano competitions Casagrande (1971, 1st place, jointly shared),

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

and

Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

and received the King's Swedish Music Award. His recording of the twelfth ''

Transcendental Études The ''Transcendental Études'' (), S.139, is a set of twelve compositions for piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of an 1837 set (which had not borne the title "d'exécution transcendante"), which in turn were – f ...

'' by

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

was later part of the evidence in the plagiarism scandal involving recordings by the English pianist

Joyce Hatto Joyce Hilda Hatto (5 September 1928 – 29 June 2006) was an English concert pianist and piano teacher. In 1956 she married William Barrington-Coupe, a record producer who was convicted of Purchase Tax evasion in 1966. Hatto became famous very ...

(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 The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...

in 1981. In this position, he mentored the conductor Shi-yeon Sung as well as the pianists

Gergely Boganyi Gergely () is a Hungarian given name and surname meaning Gregory (given name) and Gregory (surname), it may refer to: *Gábor Gergely (born 1953), male former table tennis player from Hungary *Gergely András Molnár (1897–2006), at age 108, ...

, Li-Chun Su and Ji-yeoun You. He died in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, aged 61.

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 male classical pianists 20th-century Hungarian classical pianists 20th-century Hungarian male musicians People from Miskolc Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts