Andor Foldes was educated at home and first learnt piano from Tibor Szatmari. At the age of eight he made his debut in public playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in B flat K. 450 with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, and at nine he entered the Liszt Academy where he studied piano with Ernő Dohnányi, composition with Leo Weiner and conducting with Ernst Unger. Upon graduation, at the age of nineteen, he won the Liszt Prize, awarded by a jury that included Alfred Cortot, Emil von Sauer and Sir Donald Tovey. During the year of his debut in Vienna, Foldes met Béla Bartók and both the composer and his music had a great effect on the young pianist. He studied all of Bartók’s compositions with the composer until Bartók’s death in 1945. Foldes introduced the Piano Concerto No. 2 to American audiences in 1940, in Buenos Aires and Johannesburg in 1953 and Tokyo in 1959.
Foldes first toured Europe during the 1930s, but was dissatisfied with his playing and took time out to study art and philosophy. Just before World War II he played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Op. 19 with Erich Kleiber, then made his debut in New York in a concert that was broadcast by NBC radio where he played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58 with the NBC Orchestra conducted by fellow Hungarian Erno Rapée. Foldes remained in America during the war, eventually taking American citizenship. In 1948 he returned to Europe where he taught master-classes at the Hochschule für Musik in Saarbrücken, succeeding Walter Gieseking, and toured South Africa giving twenty-three concerts. Foldes toured Europe, North and South America and Australasia and visited Japan six times; in 1978 he was the first Western artist to play in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution. Foldes added conducting to his pursuits in 1960 and settled in Switzerland in 1961.
Whilst in America in the early 1940s, Andor Foldes recorded on 78rpm discs for Continental, a label owned by Don Gabor. There are delightfully witty performances of Shostakovich’s Polka from The Age of Gold as well as his Dance Fantastique and short pieces by Prokofiev and Gershwin. For Columbia Foldes continued to record twentieth-century repertoire with violinist Joseph Szigeti. In 1941 they recorded the Sonata in G minor by Debussy and the Sonata No. 4 by Charles Ives as well as some shorter pieces.
Not long after the end of World War II Foldes played in Copenhagen and the Tono company asked him to record major works from his repertoire. These include four Beethoven sonatas, Schumann’s Abegg Variations Op. 1 and Papillons Op. 2 as well as some short pieces by Brahms and Chopin. Most of these recordings have been reissued on compact disc by APR. During the first years of the 1950s Foldes recorded for Vox and made early LPs of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D flat major Op. 10 with the Lamoureux Orchestra and Jean Martinon and Bartók’s Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra with the same orchestra and Roger Desormière. He also recorded solos by Prokofiev and Bartók, concertos by Mozart, and Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Foldes then moved to Deutsche Grammophon for whom he made many recordings including some of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, some Mozart piano concertos, Schumann’s Fantasie Op. 17, Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor and both piano concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Leopold Ludwig.
In the early 1970s Foldes recorded Schubert’s last two piano sonatas for EMI in Germany. These are fine interpretations which deserve to be more widely known.
© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).