Born in Budapest in 1952, Zoltán Kocsis was considered a musical prodigy almost from the time he could walk, first starting to play piano at the age of 3; his career was officially launched at age 18, when he won Hungarian Radio’s Beethoven piano competition. In 1978, when aged only 25, he was awarded the Kossuth Prize, Hungary’s highest state honor for artists – an award he won again in 2005. In 1983, he founded the world-renowned Budapest Festival Orchestra with acclaimed conductor Iván Fischer, and not long afterwards, he also started composing. His recording of Debussy’s “Images” won a Gramophone Award in 1990. In 1997, Mr. Kocsis took over the National Philharmonic Orchestra and quickly raised its standards. “This was considered to be a second-rate orchestra and probably was, if we are talking about quality, until I made radical changes,” Mr. Kocsis told The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts in 2003. Touring the world as a conductor from New York to Japan, Mr. Kocsis remained active even after he was found to have heart disease in 2012, working on a series of Bartok recordings and conducting virtuosos like the pianist Yuja Wang, who described him as “
my idol” at a performance in Budapest in June.
Mr. Kocsis was considered the foremost piano interpreter of Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and György Kurtág, as well as a distinguished performer of works by Claude Debussy and Sergei Rachamaninoff. In addition to playing a role in the rediscovery of less well-known dramatic works by Richard Strauss, Mr. Kocsis was also behind tremendously successful performances of Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder, and the same composer’s unfinished Moses und Aron, which Mr. Kocsis completed himself, as well as of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. He was also known for the volume and intensity of his playing. “The applause was loud,” a journalist wrote, “but hardly competitive with the decibel levels emanating from the stage.”
The three-hour-long concert in tribute to the memory of Zoltán Kocsison December 10th will reflect his links to various composers, compositions, and performers. It will feature three conductors (Péter Eötvös, János Kovács, and Csaba Somos) and some of his favorite chamber partners, like cellist Miklós Perényi: the two of them played the 1990 transcription of Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise” together more than a few times – and the audience will be able to hear it again on this night. Since his BartókNew Series was one of the recordings that made him famous, concert guests also be able to witness Four Orchestral Pieces and Cantata profana, performed by esteemed contemporaries of Mr. Kocsis like Péter Eötvös.
Click here for more details and ticket information for the Concert in Memory of Zoltán Kocsis.
