Tibor Szász

Tibor Szász is a pianist and author of essays on musicological questions and performance practice related to Liszt, Mozart and Beethoven. Prof. Dr. Tibor Szász is Professor of Piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany at the University of Music, Freiburg.

Education

Tibor Szász was born in 1948 of Hungarian parents in Transylvania. His piano studies began at the age of four (4). At the age of 13 he won a competition to study with Elisa Ciolan (pupil of Alfred Cortot). His official concerto debut came at age 16 with conductor Antonin Ciolan (pupil of Arthur Nikisch).

In 1967 he became a Laureate of the George Enescu International Piano Competition held in Bucharest and this honor was followed by many performances with orchestras in Romania. His West German debut came in 1968 when he was hailed as "the pinnacle of talent coming from behind the Iron Curtain".

After further studies in the United States with Leon Fleisher, Theodore Lettvin, Russell Sherman, Miklós Schwalb and Charles Fisher, Tibor Szász distinguished himself as first prize winner of three international piano competitionsFact|date=November 2007, including William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1974.

Artistic career

He has now performed in over 1000 solo, concerto, and chamber music concerts in Romania, Germany, Canada, France, England, Spain, Taiwan and the United States of America. Solo recitals in Carnegie Recital Hall and works for piano and orchestra in Boston Symphony Hall and with the Sinfonia Orchestra of Chicago have led up to acclaimed performances of the last three sonatas of Beethoven, first at the "La Gesse Foundation" in France, and then to presentation at Kennedy Center in Washington.

Szász was featured in two festivals where he performed 20 major works by Beethoven - the last three piano sonatas, the complete violin and cello sonatas, and the first and last piano trio. His chamber music collaborations have included tours with the Takács String Quartet.

All of his recordings have been issued in the United States and include works by Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Bartók.

Tibor Szász holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and was Professor of Piano at Bowling Green State University, the University of Dayton and Duke University. Since 1993 Szász has been at Freiburg.

Musicology and Essays on Performance Practice

Tibor Szász has written extensively about the music of Liszt, Mozart, and Beethoven. His publications include the internationally acclaimed article "Liszt's Symbols for the Divine and Diabolical: Their Revelation of a Program in the B minor Sonata" (Journal of the American Liszt Society, June 1984).

There are also two articles on Beethoven's piano concertos (the second included in the book Performing Beethoven published in "Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice 4" by Cambridge University Press, 1994).

His most recent contribution published by "Early Keyboard Journal" centered on a hitherto overlooked authentic source for the Mozart Piano Concerto in C major K. 246 now at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and containing a basso continuo realization by the composer as well as a previously unknown cadenza, now acknowledged as Mozart's due to Szasz's attribution.

External links

* [http://www.tiborszasz.de Homepage @ [http:www.tiborszasz.de] )
* [http://www.mh-freiburg.de Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (University of Music Freiburg, [http:www.mh-freiburg.de] )