Conductor and pianist highly regarded for his elegant interpretations of Chopin and Liszt
The Hungarian pianist Tamás Vásáry, who has died aged 92, was highly regarded for his elegance and clarity of execution in music by Chopin and Vásáry’s compatriot Liszt. His first concerts in the early 1960s, in London, New York and other major cities such as Milan, Vienna and Berlin, gave promise of a new talent that was exciting for its poetic expressivity rather than for daredevil virtuosity.
That priority was maintained as his career unfolded, and although his repertoire was also to embrace Debussy, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Schumann, as well as the concertos of Rachmaninov and the chamber music of Brahms, it was Chopin and Liszt to which he constantly returned.
From an early age he had aspired to the podium, too, and having studied conducting in Vienna and London, he eventually, in 1971, was able to make his conducting debut at the Menton festival, on the French Riviera. In 1979 he became musical director of the Northern Sinfonia (later Royal Northern Sinfonia), based in Newcastle upon Tyne, by which point he was devoting as much attention to conducting as to playing.
Further conducting appointments followed, including that of principal conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta (1989–97), with which he recorded works by Respighi and Honegger, and in 1993 music director and principal conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with which he toured to Britain in 1995. He also made guest appearances with leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome and the Orchestre de Paris. In 2006 he founded the Kodály Zoltán World Youth Orchestra for talented young players.
