Ervin Nyíregyházi
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Ervin Nyíregyházi (Budapest, 19 January 1903 – Los Angeles, 13 April 1987) was a Hungarian-born American pianist. His name is sometimes spelled "Erwin" (the German spelling of his given name) and "Nyiregyházi" or "Nyiregyhazi" (by dropping one or both of the diacritics). Invariably he signed it as "Nyiregyházi".
From six to twelve years old this child prodigy was observed and studied by the psychologist G. Révész. Nyíregyházi's father was a singer in the Royal Opera Chorus in Budapest; he was also very encouraging and caring but died when Ervin was 12. Before Ervin's father's death he reported many extraordinary things about his son: that Ervin had tried to sing before he was 1 year old; that he reproduced tunes correctly before he was 2; he began to compose at the age of 2; and that he played almost every song he heard correctly on a mouth-organ by the time he reached 3. He played with the Berlin Philharmonic when he was 6 under Nikisch. At the age of seven Ervin could identify any note or chord that was played for him[citation needed]. By nine years old, he learned Beethoven sonatas[citation needed], and at age eleven could play any Bach prelude and fugue from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier transposed into any key[citation needed]. He was known for his musicality just as much as his technique. On tests of general intelligence, Ervin scored a few years above average, which makes him a prodigy, not a savant.
He was interested in all sorts of subjects, not just music. As far as his personality goes, he was "a child in the full sense of the word" (Radford, 1990), meaning he was a clever, happy and sociable young boy. His debuts in Berlin at 15 and New York at 17 were widely accepted as magnificent. He was sometimes described as "a reincarnation of Liszt". In a letter to Otto Klemperer, Arnold Schoenberg wrote the following about him:
"What he plays is expression in the older sense of the word, nothing else; but such power of expression I have never heard before."
His life no less complex than his musical imagination, Nyíregyházi was married as many as 10 times before his death. His first marriage ended in a bad divorce and his wife attacking him with a knife. Although born into wealth and privilege (his parents insisted that the servants literally feed him by hand so as to relieve him of mundane concerns) he nonetheless spent the better part of his life in poverty, at times reduced to sleeping in subways. Although he continued to play often, he didn't own a piano for roughly forty years.
His inability to manage his affairs led not only to financial crisis, but also to unusual, if not colorful, career decisions. He moved to Los Angeles and worked for a film studio. It is Nyíregyházi's hands we see playing in Hollywood films like A Song to Remember, Song of Love, and The Beast with Five Fingers. He was a great and welcome friend to Béla Lugosi, among many other famous men of his era.
Concerts in 1973 led to two professional recording contracts under the auspices of Gregor Benko, which brought him into public view once again for a short while. Critical reaction to the recordings was sharply divided, with some claiming to hear an authentic 19th Century pianist (Harold C. Schonberg called him "Liszt incarnate"[1]), and others denouncing outsized dynamics, slow tempos, and many wrong notes. In 1978, he was offered return concerts at Carnegie Hall, but he declined.
Ervin Nyíregyházi died in 1987, having given his final concerts in Japan during 1980 and 1982. Only the last of his ten wives survived him. In 2007, a biography by Kevin Bazzana entitled Italic textLost GeniusItalic text was published by McClelland and Stewart of Canada.
