Kodály Quartet

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Kodály Quartet
General information
origin Hungary
founding 1966
Website kodalyquartet.com
Founding members
Ernő Sebestyén
violin
 István Párkányi
Gábor Fias
János Devich
Current occupation
violin
 Attila Falvay
violin
 Erika Tóth
viola
 János Féjervári
violoncello
 György Éder

The Kodály Quartet is one of Hungary originating String Quartet .

history

The forerunner of this quartet is the Sebestyén Quartet, founded in 1966 at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest , whose founding members, alongside the namesake Ernő Sebestyén (a young professor for violin), are István Párkányi (violin), Gábor Fias (viola) and János Devich ( Violoncello). The quartet was immediately successful and received the special diploma of the jury of the Geneva International Quartet Competition in the year it was founded.

Sebestyén became concertmaster of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1970 , while Fias, Devich, Tamás Szabó, who was added in 1969 to replace Párkányi, and the violinist Károly Duska traded under the name Kodály Quartet in the same year after their new one, the composer Zoltán Kodály had been approved by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Education. In 1980 Duska was replaced by Attila Falvay, the latter is now the quartet's veteran, as all of the remaining founding members of the Kodály Quartet have left since the 1990s. Szabó was replaced as the last founding member in 2005 by Erika Tóth after Zoltán Tuska had initially taken his place for a short time.

In the more than a decade with the classical label Naxos, the Kodály Quartet recorded the complete string quartets by Beethoven , Haydn and Schubert, among others . While the Sebestyén Quartet had already given appearances in Germany , Austria and Switzerland , appearances in other European countries and Japan followed under the new name from the beginning of the 1970s, and later in Australia , New Zealand as well as South , Central and North America . For decades, the quartet received prestigious awards and excellent reviews under both the old and the new name, such as the recording of Haydn's Op. 64 rated by Classic CD magazine as the best chamber music recording of 1993 and the sixth part of the complete recording of the Beethoven string quartets by BBC music magazine in April 2000 as recommendation of the month.

Awards

As the Sebestyén Quartet

  • 1966: Special diploma from the jury of the Geneva International Quartet Competition
  • 1968: 1st prize at the 10th International Music Competition in Budapest: Viola and String Quartet Competition in Memoriam Leó Weiner

As a Kodály Quartet

  • 1970: Liszt Prize
  • 1990: Honored Artist of the Republic of Hungary
  • 1996: Bartók Pásztory Prize

Web links