Dénes Kovács

Dénes Kovács (18 April 1930 – 11 His military service was spent playing in the orchestra of the army's Central Arts Ensemble (1950–51). From 1963 he was a soloist with the National Philharmonic. His regular duo partner was the pianist Mihály Bächer. Antoine Goléa, in a review of the complete Bartók set, describes two discs by Kovács as "essential" ("indispensables"): Violin Concerto No. 2 (reviewed by Samson) and the Sonata for Solo Violin. The Haydn expert H. C. Robbins Landon, in a review of a recording of Haydn's six sonatas for violin and viola with Géza Németh, praises the "careful and dedicated performances".

In 1957, Kovács started to work at the Liszt Academy, where he was head of department (1959) and professor (1964), before becoming the academy's acting director in around 1967, succeeding Ferenc Szabó. He continued to direct the academy as rector from 1971, after it was recognised as a university. In 1980, he stepped down as rector, remaining head of the string department. The Liszt Academy is Budapest's major college of music During his time in charge, Kovács reorganised departments, giving autonomy to the chamber music and percussion departments, and inaugurated several prizes and competitions. In a 1972 publication, he was one of several academics to criticise the Kodály method, universally used to teach music in Hungary at that date, considering that the drilling of solmization did not impart artistic understanding – "Learning the alphabet does not create a desire for reading". From 1990, he conducted masterclasses at the Saint Stephen Specialist Music School.

He was honoured with several national awards in Hungary, including the Reményi Prize in 1949, the Liszt Prize (1954 or 1955 and 1958), the Kossuth Prize (1963), the Order of Labour (gold) (1974) and the Béla Bartók–Ditta Pásztory Prize (1989 and 2000), and was given the title of "Eminent Artist" (1970).

Kovács died in Budapest in 2005.