Gusztáv Fenyő and Jorge Bolet: Beethoven
- Blue Pumpkin
- May 9
- 4 min read
Updated: 21 hours ago
I'm not on Facebook but I occasionally come across interesting things on sites that are public.
Gusztáv Fenyő wrote a few months ago on historian of pianists Mark Ainley's page:
'I played for Bolet in Sydney when he was on tour (1977): Chopin's fourth ballade. He was very complimentary. When I asked him, do you play much Beethoven, he answered "You don't have to play Beethoven to be a good pianist".
Then he proceeded to play me some Chopin-Godowsky....a lovely man.'
How lovely to see this comment, and it has developed into a trip down memory lane.
I studied with Mr Fenyő during 1983-84, when I was a final-year student (of Classics - Latin and Greek) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. I recall talking about Jorge Bolet with him, and in fact I worked on the Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C sharp minor and Beethoven's Sonata No. 30 Op.109 in E major in those lessons. He was a very exciting teacher and I still remember vividly thibgs from those lessons. I regret not doing some Bártok (or did I do the 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs Sz. 71, BB 79?)
(And much, much later, I taught myself Hungarian, but not so well.)
I still marvel at his career trajectory. Born to Hungarian parents, he grew up in Buenos Aires (he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay but his family moved across the Rio de la Plata 4 days later, he tells me), then moved to Australia at the age of 15 in 1965... and eventually to Glasgow!
I've been to Buenos Aires a few times over the years, but in those early untravelled days I recall asking him if he nipped over to Acapulco for the weekend...Oops! I recently contacted him again via email and it was a happy trip down memory lane.
He graduated from the NSW Conservatorium, Sydney in 1969 aged 19. On 26 February 1970, Fred Blanks (whose reviews of Jorge Bolet are on this site) reviewed Gustáv Fenyő in a Prom Concert with the Sydney Symphony and John Hopkins, in Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 4 ("a very fluent and expressive account").
Located on the edge of the Royal Botanic Garden in central Sydney, the Conservatorium was oiginally commissioned in 1817 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie (who was born on the island of Ulva off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of Scotland), the building was designed by prominent ex-convict architect Francis Greenway. Intended originally as the stables and servants’ quarters for the governor's house, the castellated structure is a rare Australian example of the Old Colonial Gothick Picturesque architectural style.
(I always think when I see it that it's something out of a Sir Walter Scott novel.)
Gusztáv Fenyő (aged 27) and Piers Lane were finalists in the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977 (16 July - 4 August) , but JB was not an adjudicator then - though he was later. (Fenyő was in Sydney from 1965 to 1971 and then again, after his studies in Europe, from 1975 to 1978.)
In July 1979, GF played in Perth with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Hiroyuki Iwaki in a concerto commemorating the 150th year of the foundation of Western Australia.
You can see Gusztáv Fenyő on YouTube in the Beethoven sonatas; this link is to No.30 Op.109 in E major, which I studied with him. It was filmed on 21 October 2021 at The Cathedral of The Isles, Millport, Isle of Cumbrae - close to my own home town in Scotland, a little farther down the coast.
The pianist's website adds further detail:
Since settling in Glasgow in 1980, Gusztáv Fenyő has been one of Scotland’s leading musicians. He is well-known for his cycles of works by one composer, including Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas, which he performed in both Glasgow (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) and Edinburgh (Queen’s Hall) in 1990.
Related to the great Hungarian violinist, Joseph Joachim, Gusztáv Fenyő first came into prominence as a teenager when he won the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s annual concerto competition playing Liszt’s E flat concerto. Following a period of study in London with Artur Schnabel’s disciple, Maria Curcio (1971-73), he continued his studies under Pál Kadosa (whose students include György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Arpad Joó (who conducted Bolet), András Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Dezső Ránki) and Vilmos Tátrai at the Liszt Academy in Budapest.
While in Budapest, he gave numerous Hungarian premières by composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis, Cage and Takemitsu, as well as premièring works, some dedicated to him, by Hungarian composers, including Kurtág, Sári, Serei and Csapó.
(He played some of this modern music in Glasgow recitals, and a friend told me that after one piece, Mr Fenyő said, "Excuse me a moment, while I wipe my blood off the keys!")
Gusztáv Fenyő's blog has an interesting point about tempos: "Play what is written" (September 2017)
