Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

The question in the title may seem preposterous but a little known Hungarian virtuoso with a difficult surname has started to arrive on youtube .And ebay .
The name is Laszlo Szentgyorgyi and if you listen to him play Zapateado by Sarasate it is shockingly good . Compare the Heifetz recording or the Perlman and wonder how we could have missed a supreme artist like this . A scratchy recording of the Moses (Paganini ) fantasy is better than David Oistrakh`s .
Was he as good as Joseph Hassid ?
When I searched with useless Bing nothing showed up .Try looking with Duckduckgo on youtube .
I cannot say Hassid has any competitors for expression . He was unique in that .

[John Cadd]

In the Moses Fantasy by Paganini although the recording is scratchy , you may notice the intonation at the start .Szentgyorgyi has normally impeccable intonation overall but in the theatrical opening section I think he purposely plays notes flat to give a certain artistic effect. It sounds very sad and it`s not simply because of the key. Another artistic touch later on in the piece there are short repeated phrases and the repeated parts are played softer as if they are echoes . Perlman and Oistrakh do not use that musical device . It gives a sort of Three D impression . But it also makes it playful when others make it sound like a hard work exercise .
Sadly most of the recordings sound worn out and almost impossible to hear .The violin he played was outstanding .

[DonLeister]

Thanks for suggesting Szentgyorgyi! I really enjoy his playing!

[John Cadd]

I hope more ,better quality recordings come to light . Some vinyl discs on ebay look very ragged . If a translation app can handle Hungarian we might get lucky. His name is difficult and the internet sometimes tries not to look very hard.

[Oleg Vostyakov]

[John Cadd]

Oleg ,You asked about learning to play. When I started at 10 yrs old there was no internet and I had nobody to teach me consistently .We did orchestra practice and I had a handful of lessons but that was not very useful. I bought a second hand book about Violin playing and learned most from that .Just diagrams .No photos . There is a massive amount of teaching advice on youtube.,Some of it is rubbish with complete beginners trying to teach.
Pick a good established violinist and take their advice .

[Oleg Vostyakov]

[John Cadd]

Oleg , I just remembered some of the details of that old book. It was more like a users manual . Quite small and paperback. It described portamento . How to slide the finger and drop on the note . The difference between a trill and a mordent. Different bowing styles . All written down without pictures . Basic musical words were explained . The portamento practice came from an earlier era but should be known by every player . Most of it is abolished by being ignored . Teachers might tell you off for it now .
Interesting fact about Russian people. They do not smile at strangers. They smile if you are related or known to them . Generally young children in school will be Told Off for Smiling. It`s regarded as a sign of insanity to smile all the time .
The other thing mentioned here was expression. ( In Russia ---Expression without smiling ).That is difficult with modern cheap strings compared with old fashioned Gut strings . Gut strings can make expression easy .Try to avoid adverts that concentrate on cheapness and staying in tune for weeks . Long life in a string is not as important as expression .

[Mike Shuman]

[John Cadd]

A good example of an established violinist is Nicola Benedetti. Lessons on youtube. She will forgive you if you spell her name wrong .

[John Cadd]

If you like Laszlo`s playing you should already realise he was Hungarian. If you look up Wikipedia searching for Hungarian Violinists there is a glaring gap. Not just for Laszlo but for Leopold Auer who taught Heifetz . Looking up the name Leopold Auer generally it tells you he was a Hungarian Violinist . So Wikipedia in this case is pants .
Sometimes a commenter on youtube can give a lead to other recordings we have not discovered . There was one comment that leads to another Laszlo recording of Fritz Kreisler`s music. Sorry to be so vague but there are only a few names to choose from. Sadly my hearing level fell off a cliff last month so I may never be able to hear what this recording was like .

[John Cadd]

Five days ago I had an operation to fit a Cochlear Implant in my right ear . In two days they might try to activate the implant after they take out the stitches . I had forgotten exactly when my hearing started to fail and the previous post is a useful marker with the date included . Before the operation ,as a morale booster ,I bought a Spanish Bandurria which is a small guitar tuned an octave higher than a standard guitar . I took off the old strings and fitted a new nut to make it a six string instrument . The tone is beautiful . I could hear it that day .I don`t like strumming but plucking in the same frequencies as a violin will give me a new interest .I seem to be able to hear higher plucked notes but anything above middle C on a piano sounds awful There is another little mystery . The Bandurria scale is a mere Eleven inches so that matches the skeleton fiddle I made some years ago . That fiddle is made of Oak with an ebony fingerboard . It served me well for practising .
The skeleton scale was decided when I worked out how far the fingers had to stretch as I wanted to play Ravel`s Tziganne . Henryk Szeryng has a remarkable black and white recording of that . On my "good day"I was able to enjoy that with an inductive hearing loop .