Great Performers: György Cziffra
In both editions of Harold C. Schonberg’s landmark book ‘The Great Pianists’, György Cziffra’s name is conspicuous by its absence. Yet his artistry has long captivated, fascinated and polarized keyboard mavens. Certain critics basically disparaged Cziffra as a glorified cocktail player with an impressive yet limited arsenal of tricks. Others viewed his freewheeling interpretations as a throwback to the Romantic virtuoso tradition, when the soloist came first.
Read more…Born in Budapest on 5 November 1921 into an impoverished family, Cziffra’s youthful ability to improvise at the piano landed him a circus job. At nine he auditioned for Ernö Dohnányi, who accepted the prodigy into the Budapest Conservatory. Cziffra already had several tours under his belt when he was called up for military service, leaving his young, pregnant bride behind. He tried escaping several times, landing in prison camps. Cziffra returned to Budapest in 1946 and eked out a living playing piano in bars and tea rooms, while strenuously rebuilding his technique. However, a thwarted attempt to cross the Hungarian border in 1950 led to 18 months imprisonment and a stint in a disciplinary camp, where, for ten hours a day, the pianist was forced to carry 60-kilo blocks of marble, severely distending his wrist tendon in the process.
After the Cziffra family successfully crossed over to the West in 1956, the pianist made his Vienna and Paris debuts, astonishing critics and audiences alike. Indeed, the hard-to-please French critic and pianophile Bernard Gavoty likened the new sensation’s daredevil style to the young Horowitz. Cziffra’s international career quickly blossomed. Cziffra took on French citizenship (he eventually adopted the French form of his first name, Georges), and began his long series of recordings.
Generally speaking, the art of Cziffra is not for purists who hold the literalist zeitgeist dear. He traverses the Chopin Etudes like the driver of a roller coaster, abounding in hyper-subjective detailing, leaving listeners either irritated or thoroughly entertained. His Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies run rampant with wild runs, petulant accents, in-your-face tremolos, added octaves, filled-in chords, heart-stopping speed-ups and slow-downs, and hair-trigger articulation. So do Cziffra’s madcap transcriptions, where he loves showing off his signature interlocking octaves. And if you want to laugh out loud in both delight and disbelief, sample our playlist’s opening salvo, Liszt’s ‘Grand Galop Chromatique’. Conversely, though, Cziffra could rein it in when so inclined, and bring requisite lyrical grace to simple encore-type fare. His approach to Baroque composers like Couperin and Scarlatti is unapologetically pianistic, yet never garish.
From the late 1960s throughout the 1970s Cziffra chose to exclusively collaborate in concertos with his son conducting. After György Jr. burned to death in a 1981 fire, his father all but lost his will to live and make music. The pianist prevailed, but never really recaptured his form. Yet he encouraged and supported gifted young pianists by launching a competition that bore his name, and purchasing a chapel in the city of Senlis for concert use. In the years since the pianist’s death on 15 January 1994, Cziffra’s reputation has risen among connoisseurs who acknowledge his unique and stimulating contributions to 20th-century piano culture.