A musically gifted child, Tamás Vásáry studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Josef Gat and Lajos Hernádi, also receiving advice from Ernő Dohnányi and Zoltán Kodály. Upon completion of his studies, Kodály invited the seventeen-year-old Vásáry, who had already won first prize at the Franz Liszt Competition at the age of fourteen, to teach at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Vásáry’s father and uncle had held political appointments since the end of World War II, but the political unrest in Hungary forced them first to leave these government posts and then, in 1951, to leave the city and live in the country. Vásáry helped support his family by playing the piano, and in 1954 graduated from the Liszt Academy with a diploma, but during the political unrest of 1956 he and his family headed for Brussels, with Tamás eventually settling in Switzerland near Lake Geneva. A few years later he decided to reside permanently in London, by which time he had won seventh prize in the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris and sixth prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition when other winners included Lazar Berman and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

By his mid to late twenties Vásáry, who had already performed in Eastern Europe, Germany, Belgium and Brazil, was ready to give his debut performances in the major musical capitals; and during the early 1960s he did so in London, New York, Milan, Vienna and Berlin. When he played in London in March 1961 a column in The Times was headed In Love with the Piano: Mr Vásáry’s Lyrical Playing. ‘When Mr Vásáry played, the ear was flattered and enchanted. He is in love with the piano. He sat relaxed through two virtuoso concertos, Tchaikovsky’s and Liszt’s first, playing loosely and easily, conserving his power for climaxes. There was no sensationalism, no circus-ring thrills.’ Vásáry has maintained a successful career as a pianist, but in 1971, at the Menton Festival, he conducted for the first time. In his career as a conductor Vásáry has conducted over seventy different orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris, and has been musical director of the Northern Sinfonia, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. In 1998 he conducted a performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Thàlia Theatre in Budapest.

As a pianist, Vásáry’s repertoire is based on Chopin and Liszt. He also plays Debussy, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Schumann, and has recorded all of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos and some of Brahms’s chamber music. His style is one of clarity, elegance and finesse, a virtuosity that is combined with a lightness of touch and the sensibility of a poetic mind: added to this is a lack of sentimentality, attributes that make his interpretation of Chopin one that is highly regarded. Vásáry’s performances are always expertly paced and structured in a way that accumulates and builds excitement, almost culminating in a peroration at the end. He achieves this to great effect in his recording of the four ballades by Chopin, but in a work such as the Don Juan Fantasy by Liszt, earlier sections can sound rather tame.

When Vásáry participated in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, one of the jury members was his compatriot, the pianist Annie Fischer. She introduced him to conductor Ferenc Fricsay, who enabled Vásáry to record for Deutsche Grammophon. In July 1957 he recorded a Liszt recital in Hamburg. Further recordings were issued in the late 1950s including an excellent performance of both piano concertos by Liszt, recorded in May 1959. Vásáry delivers these works devoid of bombast, and is one of the few pianists who can give the Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major a really successful reading. When reviewing the LP of the Liszt recital in 1958, Lionel Salter wrote in The Gramophone, ‘If ever a player could recapture Liszt’s own magic, this is he: without question this is the most beautiful Liszt playing I have ever heard, quite eclipsing all other contenders.’ Of his recording of both Liszt piano concertos issued in 1960 Roger Fiske wrote in The Gramophone, ‘Vásáry is one of those pianists who command your attention the whole time. There is no trace of superficiality here, and a great deal of sincerity.’ Although Vásáry’s 1961 recording of Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor is not included, most of the solo Liszt recordings have been issued on a Deutsche Grammophon compact disc in their Originals Series. It is evident from these reviews and the recordings themselves that Vásáry’s playing of Liszt is not in the barn-storming category, and his almost translucent style is equally successful in the music of Chopin. For Deutsche Grammophon he has recorded much of Chopin’s music, including the complete scherzos, études (musical rather than virtuosic), nocturnes, waltzes, impromptus, an excellent version of the ballades, and both sonatas. The recording of the two piano concertos from the mid 1960s is particularly good. Joan Chissell, preferring them to the earlier of Krystian Zimerman’s recordings, wrote in The Gramophone, ‘…I still think both performances among the most truly Chopinesque on record.’ Vásáry recorded the Chopin concertos again, this time for ASV with the Northern Sinfonia of England.

Other Deutsche Grammophon recordings include works by Debussy recorded in 1969 where Vásáry’s clarity comes to the fore, and Rachmaninov’s complete piano concertos plus Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini Op. 43 recorded in the mid 1970s with the London Symphony Orchestra and Yuri Ahronovich. Although he started his career as a virtuoso pianist, Vásáry does not seem completely suited to the Slavic elements of Rachmaninov’s music, although he himself said, ‘I use much less rubato than other pianists. I’m not saying that I am necessarily right, because other players have the example of the composer’s own reading to justify their approach. I believe that if the long line is broken by rubati, it cannot be truly perceived by the listener.’ However, he does give a fine performance of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini Op. 43. Vásáry also recorded two of Mozart’s piano concertos in 1979 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra whom he conducts from the keyboard, playing three of his own cadenzas. Writing about this recording of K. 449 and K. 537, a critic in Stereo Review talked of Vásáry’s ‘uncontrived eloquence in every bar’and stated, ‘The orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic, and the result is surely one of the most beautiful presentations of Mozart concertos ever put on disc.’ Only K. 537 seems to have been reissued on compact disc. In 1989 Vásáry conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in a disc for Collins Classics of Mozart’s Piano Concertos K. 453 and K. 467 and a few years later recorded the same composer’s music for piano duet with Peter Frankl, also for Collins Classics.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).