György Cziffra

Christian Georges Cziffra (; 5 November 192115 January 1994) was a Hungarian-French virtuoso pianist and composer. He is considered to be one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of the twentieth century. Among his teachers was Ernő Dohnányi, a pupil of István Thoman, who was a favourite pupil of Franz Liszt.

Born in Budapest, he became a French national in 1968. Cziffra is known for his recordings of works of Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann, and also for his technically demanding arrangements or paraphrases of several orchestral works for the piano, including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee and Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube. Cziffra left a sizeable body of recordings.

He lived in Senlis, a commune northeast of Paris, where he ran a foundation for young musicians and artists.

Early years Cziffra was born to a poor Romani family of musicians in Budapest in 1921. In his memoirs, Cziffra describes his father, a player of the cimbalom, as "a cabaret artist". The family lived in poverty. His father, Gyula was unemployed, and the family income was earned by Cziffra’s mother Ilona and his elder sister, Jolán. His parents had lived in Paris before World War I, when they were expelled as enemy aliens.

His earliest exposure to the piano came from watching his elder sister Jolán practice. She had decided she was going to learn the piano after finding a job which allowed her to save the required amount of money for buying an upright piano. Cziffra, who was weak as a child, often watched his sister practice, and mimicked her. He learned without sheet music, instead repeating and improvising over tunes sung by his parents. Later he earned money as a child improvising on popular music at a local circus.

In 1930 Cziffra began to study at the Steinitz Music School, and in 1932 he passed the entrance examination for the Franz Liszt Academy. Here he studied initially under Imre Keéri-Szántó. (He is buried next to his son.)

List of compositions

Original works Improvisation en forme de valse (1950) Ouverture Solennelle (Solemn Overture), for piano Pastorale pour Gerbert, for piano or organ (1976)

Arrangements and transcriptions Johannes Brahms: 15 Hungarian Dances (transcriptions of Nos. 1-6, 8-10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, and 21, from piano duet to piano solo) (c.1950s?) Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 (improv version) (1957?) Johannes Brahms: Waltz Op. 39 No. 15 (1993?, much earlier?) Frederic Chopin: Minute Waltz (1993?) Antonin Dvorak: Improvisation (1988) Manuel de Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (c.1955?) Edvard Grieg: The Hall of the Mountain King (1988) Aram Khachaturian: Sabre Dance (c.1954?) Franz Lehar: Gold and Silver Waltz (1993) Franz Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 16 (1950s?) Franz Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19 (1950s?) Jacques Offenbach: Barcarolle (1993) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee (c.1955?) Gioachino Rossini: La Danza (1950s?) Gioachino Rossini: Improvisations on Themes from Rossini's William Tell (also referred to as Fantasy on William Tell Overture) (1956) Johann Strauss II: An der schönen, blauen Donau (The Blue Danube) (c.1955?) Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (1st version) (1950–55) Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (2nd, shortened version) (1955) Johann Strauss II: Réminiscences de Johann Strauss (from various Strauss compositions) (1956) Johann Strauss II: Tritsch-Tratsch Polka (c.1955?) Johann Strauss II: Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron) (c.1955?) Franz von Vecsey: Valse triste (c.1955?) Giuseppe Verdi: Concert Paraphrase on Themes from the Opera Il trovatore by G. Verdi (c.1955?) Giuseppe Verdi: Improvisation on a Theme from La Traviata (Libiamo ne' lieti calici) (1993) Vincent Youmans: Tea for Two, improvisation (1977) Traditional: Román cigányfantázia (Rumanian Gypsy Fantasy) (AKA Fantaisie roumaine, improvisation in gypsy style) (1957) An alternate version was privately recorded by Cziffra in the 1967 Many improvisations on various classical pieces, performed in live concerts throughout Cziffra's concertizing career, beginning mostly around 1953) Numerous improvisations on popular tunes, performed early in Cziffra's career beginning in 1926) Numerous jazz improvisations (mostly 1947-50, 1977–78)

Media

Audio

In addition to the above discography of commercially-released recordings, there exist audio recordings of complete live concerts, a few of which have been commercially released on disc, several can be obtained non-commercially, some however have been lost.

Videos Cziffra playing for BBC broadcasts (1962-1963) Cziffra plays Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1