As a little boy, his parents had servants cut his food and place it in his mouth so he could keep his attention on less mundane matters.
Some people claimed he was the literal reincarnation of Liszt.
As an adult, he demonstrated a questionable ability to care for himself. At times he was so poor (largely through mismanagement of his money) that he was reduced to sleeping on subways.
He was married ten times.
As "Pianist X," he sometimes wore a leather mask in performance. Pianos would suffer under his onslaught, and the pianos he chose to play on often had as many nervous tics as the pianist did (a parallel with Glenn Gould).
For decades before this recording was made, Nyiregyhazi did not own a piano, or even practice on one.

Perhaps the reader will not be surprised to hear that the two men whom Nyiregyhazi idolized the most were Franz Liszt and Oscar Wilde.

These recordings were made in 1978 during a series of sessions for the International Piano Archives. Material from these sessions was released on Columbia LPs (apparently not transferred to CD), and at their release in 1980, critical and popular opinion was mixed and vociferous. Some people didn't believe that any man could play so loudly, and it's true that Nyiregyhazi might have been one of the loudest pianists of all time. That would be a dubious distinction, however, and there's more to the Nyiregyhazi legend than volume. The man was an eccentric, but he also was a poet, and his playing shows him to have been a man of exquisite refinement and a searching imagination.

There are six paraphrases on this disc: a Rienzi/Lohengrin conflation, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Trovatore, Otello, Eugene Onegin, and I Pagliacci. Some are Lisztian fantasies (the Trovatore paraphrase closely resembles Liszt's, with its reliance on the "Miserere"), and others are more straightforward medleys, although not necessarily of the operas' most popular tunes. None of Nyiregyhazi's imaginative, stylish paraphrases seem trivial, unless one has a deep-seated antipathy to this sort of thing. The pianism is astonishing, considering the man's history, but it is not note-perfect. It is informed with both power and an outstanding timbral sensitivity, although these qualities are more obvious on the Columbia Liszt LPs. The recording itself is only adequate -- this is pianism that probably needs the very best in recorded sound to make its full impact.

This is the kind of disc that might make you want to pull out your Ouija board and burn a lot incense as you play it. Traditional it's not, but it's an experience that you won't soon forget, whether your reaction is positive or negative. I think that anyone with a strong interest in the piano and pianists should hear Nyiregyhazi, and in the absence of the Columbia LPs, this CD should do nicely.

Raymond Tuttle

<rtuttle@mwc.edu>

Two Legendes by Franz Liszt
Gordon Rumson

Greetings,

Recently I dug out some of my old Ervin Nyiregyhazi recordings. The ones that astounded me most again were the recordings of the Two Legendes by Franz Liszt.

In both cases Nyiregyhazi's performances are so striking that other recordings pale in comparison.

The first legend which is 'St. Francis preaching to the birds' can sound terribly banal in the hands of virtually all pianists. I heard the dullest performance of this in Toronto by a 'famed Liszt performer' in the 80s. Every note was perfectly in place, every trill was perfect and the result was a blight. One wished for hunters to put the d*mned birds out of *our* misery. The same goes for most of the recordings I have heard.

But, Nyiregyhazi. Ah. This is something utterly beyond mere piano playing.

His trills are every bit as good as anyone and yet his birds sound like the most widely variated flock imaginable. A veritable Parliament of Birds. But he achieves this by utter disregard of the bar line and pulse. You may think this a horror, but it is perfect. As the pianist Nathan Perelman once said "Who ever heard of birds who sing in time...?"

It is also in the sermon of the Saint that Nyiregyhazi creates something remarkable. For those of us who have sat through the average sermon the mere word conjures up boredom of an infinite scale. But when a great preacher stands up it is remarkable -- even for those of us who are not religious. Compared to Nyiregyhazi's sermon no recording or performance comes close. His Saint speaks with a transcendental eloquence -- and again with total disregard for mere metre. But he SPEAKS! And we, like those birds of legend, are compelled to listen. From a technical point of view, Nyiregyhazi declaims the musical line and also listens very carefully to the intervals between the notes, giving a powerful tension to the sound.

The second Legende, different St. Francis, different story (walking on the water) is given a stormy performance that certainly has its share of 'wrong' notes, but who ever heard of a tornado with its droplets nicely placed? This is music of surging fury. It is given a performance by Nyiregyhazi that gives due credit to the content. Yes, he tears through the music -- like a lightening bolt.

Am I being to effusive? Well I suppose enthusiasm is a bad thing. Especially in as academic a subject as playing the piano...:))

I do not wish for pianists to try to imitate the way Nyiregyhazi plays. BUT I do wish that we pianists could learn that we should preserve ourselves and our audiences from boring performances and never replace living music with mere attention to detail as if minding our manners were the same as being good humans or better artists. We ought to seek the inner meaning of the music behind the facade of black dots. This might be heresy to some, but then I'll accept the epithet. Nyiregyhazi's performances prove, not that they are the ideal or only way to play (if Nyiregyhazi applied at a music school he would not get in the door -- but that tells us more about the school, than about Nyiregyhazi) but that there is real music even when other things are ignored.

The ideal would be to catch what Nyiregyhazi heard AND follow the score correctly and thoroughly.

All best wishes,

Gordon Rumson (pianistic heretic)

PS I've also always loved Paderewski's performances.

Ervin Nyiregyhazi, Pianist

Reviews

Ervin Nyiregyhazi

Operatic Paraphrases

Review originally appeared on: http://www.classical.net/~music/recs/reviews/v/vai01003a.html

Ervin Nyiregyhazi, piano VAI Audio VAI/IPA 1003 [ADD] (monaural) (55:29)

Two Legendes by Franz Liszt Gordon Rumson

Review originally appeared on:
http://www.classical.net/~music/recs/reviews/v/vai01003a.html

Ervin Nyiregyhazi, piano
VAI Audio VAI/IPA 1003 [ADD] (monaural) (55:29)

Two Legendes by Franz Liszt
Gordon Rumson