Joseph Szigeti

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Joseph Szigeti (September 5, 1892 – February 19, 1973) was a Hungarian violinist and composer.

He was born in Budapest into a musical family. His mother died when he was still a baby, and shortly thereafter he was sent to live with his grandparents in the small Carpathian town of Máramaros-Sziget.

Szigeti began to play the violin at a very young age, taking lessons from his uncle. A few years later, his father decided that it was time for little "Joska" to come live with him in Budapest and to study at the conservatory. After a brief stint with an inadequate teacher at a second-string private conservatory, Joseph was accepted into the Budapest Academy of Music and studied with renowned teacher Jenő Hubay. Szigeti quickly revealed himself to be a child prodigy, and made his concert debut at age 13.

For the next several years Szigeti was celebrated all over Europe as a "wunderkind", being made to wear a young boy's sailor suit and play little "salon pieces" even into his mid-teens. One particularly notable adventure from these years began in 1906 after a performance in Berlin, when an entrepreneurial gentleman inquired whether young Szigeti would be interested in a week-long trial engagement at Germany's finest "music hall". This turned out to be, quite literally, a circus, and under the pseudonym of "Joska Szulagi" (his father insisted on a pseudonym as a condition of the engagement), Szigeti performed alongside acrobats, ballerinas and lion-tamers.

In his book With Strings Attached: Reminiscences and Reflections, Szigeti credits pianist Ferruccio Busoni with shaking him out of his "youthful indolence" and giving him a new, thoughtful perspective on music and performing. Szigeti first met Busoni in 1906, and they would remain friends and colleagues for the rest of Busoni's life. Szigeti cites their work together on the famous Chaconne in D minor of J.S. Bach as an especially enlightening experience.

He made his American concert debut in December 1925, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, which would prove to be the first of many successful concerts and tours in the United States. In 1939, fleeing the war in Europe, he and his wife emigrated to the United States.

He was a life-long friend of composer Béla Bartók, with whom he shared his ardent nationalism and anti-fascism. They collaborated on many musical projects including a legendary recital performance at the Library of Congress on April 11, 1940, just after Bartók had emigrated to the United States. Bartók wrote his Contrasts for piano, violin and clarinet for himself, Szigeti, and clarinetist Benny Goodman, and the Rhapsody No. 1 for Szigeti.

Joseph Szigeti is admired as a violinist of great intellect and expressive genius. He was nicknamed "The Scholarly Virtuoso" because of his thoughtful approach to music. His masterful interpretations of the classics are still renowned today, more than thirty years after his death.

Among his compositions is the operetta Csókon szerzett vőlegény.

He retired in 1960.

[edit] References

Szigeti, Joseph. With Strings Attached: Reminiscences and Reflections (N.Y., 1947)
Szigeti, Joseph. A Violinist's Notebook (London, 1965)
Szigeti, Joseph. Szigeti on the Violin: Improvisations on a Vioilinist's Themes (N.Y., 1969).
Slonimsky, Nicolas, Ed. "Joseph Szigeti" in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Centennial Edition. Schirmer, 2001.