Two weeks before a very important concert of mine (Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto in Klagenfurt), I overheard that Sandor Vegh was teaching in Salzburg. I went to Salzburg the very next day. I found him in the Mozarteum’s special hall, crowded with students. As soon as I entered, he asked me as a stranger why I had come, was I looking for someone? “I would like to play for you, if you would allow me”. “Of course” he said, “just wait until the end of the lesson”. Later he listened to the end of Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A major from the beginning to the last note without a single word. As soon as I finished, he frowned, “man, where have you been?” I told him about my life so far (my studies, my previous jobs and that I have been the first concertmaster of the Klagenfurt Opera House for 5 years). When I asked him if I could study with him, he said that he did not take orchestral musicians on principle, that he demands a lot and that he is an egotist who wants his teaching to produce results, which requires the student to be free. “But” he continued “I’ll make an exception with you”. He also noted that it is a misconception to think that there are miracle professors. Not every professor is right for every student, which is also true the other way round, but there are, of course wonderful students. “When I come, I have to come to Salzburg for two or three days at a time, not just for one lesson, because I have to listen to other students’ lessons, because they have the same problems and I can benefit from that.”

And so began four and a half years of the most rewarding years of my studies, during which I was incredibly enriched by the gifts of learning. As soon as I asked him after my first lesson how much I owed him, he said “you can’t pay me that”. And it stayed that way for the rest of the years. Today, I can honestly only repay that gift with gratitude. I have been able to spend a lot of time with him beyond my teaching hours. Day after day, I was the guest of Sándor Végh and his wife from breakfast till dinner. I still remember every day his kind invitation to casually eat the delicacies he offered me: “Eat it with love, my dear”, because that’s what they used to say in their home in Transylvania, in Cluj!! After an early breakfast, he worked with me for an hour before we went to the Mozarteum, where he treated me as an exceptional student of the school. It was a very hard and demanding lesson – which was usual in the old Hungarian school. Sándor Végh always said that a talented person has to endure it – or, if it is too much, stop studying. After lunch, he took a short nap and then worked with me for another hour at home before we went to the afternoon classes at the Mozarteum, where he again worked with me. Those hours we spent together were of the utmost importance to me. Above all, the sparkling conversation between his wife Alice and him and the incredibly interesting stories took away a lot of my inhibitions. After such hours, I was literally full of new ideas and thoughts.

We had many points of contact. Beginning with Végh’s enormous knowledge of the language, we had a long chat about the Sumerian language, which was on my mind at the time. He was also interested in my documentaries about the former Hungarian culture in Transylvania. Both our roots come from Transylvania: He was born in Kolozsvár and I have many relatives in Transylvania through my grandmother. I have traveled extensively in this area and filmed local customs.

He was particularly impressed by the genuine folk art. He particularly liked the variety, the ability to vary, and the genuine feelings that are expressed in the art there. All of these artifacts, earthenware burnt and painted, wood carvings, or embroidery, were for him pieces of art, unique and not to be found elsewhere. Along this route is also an art that calls for utmost variability and richness in nuances. We also had a common interest in the beauty of musical instruments and cultivated the art of recognizing their origin, based on publications of the trade. Referring to his predilection for violin bows, he called himself a bow bigamist.

Over time, a deep, untroubled friendship developed between our families. We particularly remember the unforgettable summer invitations to Cervo by the sea in Italy. But we were just as happy when we were able to welcome the Végh family as our guests for several days in Ebenthal. It was nice to see how the calm atmosphere at our house had a beneficial effect on him when he wanted to rest after periods of hard work.

So we visited all the important sights of Carinthia and also some of neighboring Slovenia. He was particularly impressed by the beauty of the Carinthian landscape and the magic of nature.

During our tour of the lakes, Végh was also interested in Brahms in Leonstain and we also drove past Mahler’s house. We will always remember his cheerful nature, good humor, and laughter at jokes and witty stories.

Hardly a day has passed since I met him that I don’t think about his words. I could only play when I imagined I saw him in front of me and thought, how would he play, how would he sound?

It was immensely exciting to watch him play, whether in class or in concert. And often one felt that one had to spontaneously applaud his wonderful solutions. When he picked up his Stradivarius, he was transformed and changed, as if rays from heaven were shining on him. His suggestiveness was overwhelming, at times like the caress of a woman’s hand, at times like the crack of a whip.

Végh’s beautiful, soulful tone was always speaking, as if he wanted to talk about something. Végh also said that all Italian sonatas begin as if they were telling about times long past. But the constant intensification of his music gave the impression that everything was taking place right now.

Végh’s flawless, amazing technique was never L’art pour l’art; with him, Paganini also acquired a truly uncanny depth.

Again and again, we admired Végh’s incredible memory. No one could bring him anything that he would not have played immediately, regardless of whether it was an etude or a concert piece. For him, music was the measure of all things and we should always approach problems from the musical side.

In principle, technical solutions should serve the music – here he showed no mercy. It was also always important to look for the analogy in other pieces to determine how to solve this or that in another way.

Through his fundamental knowledge, Végh connected us to earlier times. Through him we became the late descendants of French violin playing (from Hubay via Vieuxstamps to Rode and Beriot) and through him we have been able to recognize an almost forgotten style of playing.

It is fair to say: “If Pablo Casals was the king of the bow with the cello, it was Sándor Végh on the violin”.

The magic of the beautiful tone has travelled on the path of our lives. Ever since we founded our quartet, we have been listening to the recordings of the Végh Quartet, while preparing for our concerts, with the greatest pleasure.  This is how we have expanded our large repertoire of more than 350 works of music.  (This includes the entire Beethoven cycle and the entire chamber music literature of Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Haydn…)  In various cycles, we have played the different music of various countries in the most beautiful palaces and castles in Carinthia and elsewhere in Austria. These concerts have often been televised by the ORF, the Austrian Television Corporation.  We have been able to introduce ourselves in many countries, like Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Hungary…and in great cities, like London, Oxford, Budapest… We have always played with a great preference for Hungarian works (Bartók, Kodály, Weiner, Szalay, Kovács, Takács, Durkó, Kenntner…)  Over time, we set up a small concert hall in our house, in which we have organized concerts on a regular basis.

The most beautiful concerts I recall have been the orchestra concerts: Bartók’s Second Violin concert, which I have played with various orchestras, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Bach concerts…and the numerous recordings on long-playing records: Mendelssohn double concert for the violin and piano, Jenö Takács‘s entire chamber music works.

Every year at Easter, we play the musical masterpiece, ‘‘The Seven Last Words of Christ“ by J. Haydn.  Here it is noticeable that the beautiful tone also ‘‘speaks.“ During the piece I also see images, because Haydn composed musical pictures. The music sounds different when the big crowd shouts, and the sound is melodious when Jesus speaks.

We recorded this masterpiece in an Italian church, and I later added the images, which Haydn’s music inspired me to see. These loving or angry images, these often contradictory feelings, which we ourselves feel during our performance, lead us through the story-telling, talkative sound of our violins to a result that expresses the meaning of the presented works to our listeners.

In Klagenfurt, I have often met great musicians. One of my most interesting memories has been to meet Henrik Szeryng.  After his concert, we had dinner together, and he also generously spent the following day with us. After we had admired each other’s Guarnieri violins, he spent half a day playing on my two violins, and so I was able to admire his magical violin-playing at first hand. One of my violins reminded him of the violin of Josef Szigeti, because he said, ‘‘These instruments are like twins.“ (It is interesting to note that Sándor Végh, who had owned a Guarnieri del Gesu violin before his Stradivari violin, had also remarked that ‚‘‘my instrument and this violin are similar, like two eggs.“ Szeryng also asked me to play the violin, because he wanted to see how I played it. At his departure, he expressed the desire to carry on playing music together when he was to come the following year.  Unfortunately, this meeting no longer took place, because of his death.

What do I owe to Végh?

When Sándor Végh spoke about the relationship between teachers and their students, namely, that ‘‘there are no miracle professors, there are only wonderfully talented students,“ I think he was only half right.  The young generation observes their masters with admiration and passionate enthusiasm.  The professor, in turn, enjoys the performances of his students, who have developed wonderfully through his guidance. Examples of this are Vieuxstemps and Ysaÿe:

One day, the old Vieuxstemps was strolling through the streets of Liège when he heard the beautiful sounds of a violin coming from a cellar.  Looking for the source of the sound, he found 9-year-old Ysaÿe and sent him to study with his assistant, Wieniawsky. Ysaÿe later talked about the admirable teaching process of the old master and his assistant and how grateful he was for these lessons. Later Ysaÿe followed in their footsteps as professor at the Bruxelles Conservatoire. He became the most influential Belgian violinist and closed the gap between the old masters and the wonderful violinists of the modern age: Joachim, Sarsate-Kreisler, Heifetz, Francescatti. Ysaÿe, like all the great violin virtuosos, not only taught students, but was also able to attain higher levels of music culture with his own compositions.  Ysaÿe’s 6 solo sonatas followed, with their breakneck and most exciting demands on the beginning development of Bach’s partitas and sonatas. Ysaÿe had dedicated all 6 of his sonatas to another selected and wonderful violin virtuoso or other talented students. (Szigeti József, Jacques Thibaud, Georges Enesco, Fritz Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom, Manuel Quiroga)

Végh made friends with Ysaÿe’s son and the son of Ysaÿe’s student Crickboom. They told him and showed him how Ysaÿe played his own sonatas!

Béla Bartók, the great Hungarian composer and pianist, also had a great influence on the art of playing the violin. The history of music is not only grateful for  his violin concerts, (The first one he dedicated to Stefi Geyer; the second one to Zoltán Székely.) but also for other works, like the great, heavy, but beautiful solo sonata, commissioned by and dedicated to Jehudi Menuhin. There are also the 6 Bartók quartets, which were a further development of Beethoven’s c-minor quartet.  Bartók was friends with the young Végh, whose great violin virtuosity and technical ability helped him to compose his last two quartets. (So it is understandable why the Végh Quartet shows such elementary forces when interpreting Bartók and why all works of Bartók, played by Végh, are so easily understood and personable!

What a joy it was for me that I was allowed to take on these works of Ysaÿe and Bartók as parts of the authentic process of Sándor Végh.  It felt like runners passing the rod to each other in a relay race.

I will never forget the respect and love with which Bartók listened to my radio recordings of  the II. Violin Concert, the solo sonata, the Contrasts, Bartók’s Sonata for the violin and piano, and the radio broadcasts of my Ysaÿe  solo sonatas. At our last meeting, when saying goodbye, he embraced me and said, as if it were an obligatory request: ‘‘You should never abandon the works of Ysaÿe and Bartók.“

What I owe to Végh’s lessons:

Végh consciously wanted to lead me to the cradle.  Now I understand why it was so important to study the Études of Rode to the level of a concert performance. All these études deal with specific problems of violin playing, through which one can uncover the secrets of violin playing.

While Végh taught the old masters authentically, he was able to bring to life the great figures of music history and awaken their style of playing, their story-telling tone, and their way of creating images. Végh got all this from Hubay. An example of this is the St. Petersburg performance of Tschaikovsky´s violin concert. Tschaikovsky conducted his work himself; Hubay was the soloist. (At that time, Auer considered this violin concert to be unplayable.) Végh showed with which fingering, bowing, and phrasing Hubay brought this work to life and how Hubay carried out Tschaikovsky´s instructions, concerning individual passages.  From this, I had an idea of what an ideal performance in Tschaikovsky´s time was like, and so this masterpiece has become one of my favourite pieces.

It brings me great joy whenever I play so many masterpieces for my students and my dear audience.  I can say in Ysaÿe´s words: “I am happiest when I play the violin; then I love the whole world and let my feelings and my heart speak.“

Prof. Mag. Attila Szabo