Géza Anda

Since his death in 1976 at the age of 55, Géza Anda's considerable reputation has faded somewhat from view. But in his heyday he was widely regarded as a transcendent pianist, possessed of a natural technique that gave his performances an intimate quality, even when he was scaling the Himalayan heights of his signature <a href="spotify:artist:5wTAi7QkpP6kp8a54lmTOq">Brahms</a> B flat major concerto. It was with that work that he made his debut in 1939 in Budapest under <a href="spotify:artist:15C0u91ymHEGnLv9HpX6R5">Willem Mengelberg</a>.

Anda was born in 1921 in Budapest; after studying with Imre Stefaniai and Imre Keeri-Szanto, he became a piano pupil of <a href="spotify:artist:4svbYK3Jck5FTklqYmeRPK">Ernst von Dohnányi</a> at the Royal Music Academy. A stipend allowed him to travel to Berlin, where he performed <a href="spotify:artist:1C3sffOOvQNUwg4YIsvKqy">Franck</a>'s Symphonic Variations under <a href="spotify:artist:4tvRZdoY4H9Wgcf0w1rZqs">Furtwängler</a>. Anda remained in Berlin during the first years of World War II, but in 1942 he fled to Switzerland, where he encountered the great pianist and teacher <a href="spotify:artist:4D1JoQ2bhE1vA7EmnnYC0E">Edwin Fischer</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:4D1JoQ2bhE1vA7EmnnYC0E">Fischer</a> was a proponent of performing the <a href="spotify:artist:4NJhFmfw43RLBLjQvxDuRS">Mozart</a> piano concertos while conducting from the keyboard, and Anda would later adopt this practice, adding bench-led performances of all the concertos (even the early ones) to his repertoire. Anda was among the first to explore the whole range of <a href="spotify:artist:4NJhFmfw43RLBLjQvxDuRS">Mozart</a>'s concertos at a time when only the greatest hits were heard in concert halls; his outstanding 1960s recordings of the complete cycle with the Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum remain a milestone in the history of recorded music.

Anda's style was noteworthy for its transparency of texture and its singing qualities, which led <a href="spotify:artist:4tvRZdoY4H9Wgcf0w1rZqs">Furtwängler</a> to dub him a "troubadour" of the piano. His flawless technique allowed him to invest his performances with considerable individuality: his readings of <a href="spotify:artist:2UqjDAXnDxejEyE0CzfUrZ">Schumann</a>, for instance, were breathtakingly multidimensional, full of asides and highly appropriate introspective commentary conveyed from within <a href="spotify:artist:2UqjDAXnDxejEyE0CzfUrZ">Schumann</a>'s notes. He was especially influenced by his artistic partnership with the great Romanian pianist <a href="spotify:artist:4HNzRQlaUVSYkQcBvrDJV9">Clara Haskil</a>, with whom he played two-piano repertoire from 1953 to 1958. Her moral commitment to conveying music's essence deepened Anda's own musical insight; his subsequent performances reflected a new harnessing of Anda's strong musical personality to the service of the music's meaning.

Although his repertoire was wide and ranged across core Classical-Romantic territory, it is likely that Anda will be most remembered for his interpretations of the music of his countryman <a href="spotify:artist:5zyNXVd952fWOjkdGHCvPd">Béla Bartók</a>, whose three piano concertos he recorded in 1959 and 1960. These performances are masterpieces of technical ease and artistic mastery, and remain available in commercial release. A few months before the end of his too-brief life, Anda went into the studio and left a final testament of waltzes by <a href="spotify:artist:7y97mc3bZRFXzT2szRM4L4">Chopin</a>, interpreted in an astonishing otherworldly manner. Anda allows the rhythmic impulse of <a href="spotify:artist:7y97mc3bZRFXzT2szRM4L4">Chopin</a>'s triple-time to hover almost motionlessly, as if contemplated from a distant and ethereal height.