Biography

István Sárközy (26 November 1920 – 6 July 2002) was a Hungarian classical composer, music critic, editor and academic teacher. His compositions date from the 1940s to 1979, and include works for musical theatre, choral works and songs, orchestral and chamber works, and works for piano. Notable examples include the stage works Liliomfi (1950) and Szelistyei asszonyok (The Women of Szelistye; 1951), the chamber cantata Júlia énekek (Julia Songs; 1956), the overture Az ifjúsághoz (To Youth; 1957), and the Sinfonia concertante for clarinet and strings (1963). He taught at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1959. Sárközy was born in the Pesterzsébet suburb of Budapest in 1920. As a youth, he studied the piano with Lula Földessy-Hermann. He trained in composition with the composers Zoltán Kodály, Ferenc Farkas and János Viski at Budapest's Higher Music School (1938–39) and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest (from 1939).During the Second World War, Sárközy worked in statistics, while starting to compose, and afterwards held posts at the Liszt Academy (1945–47) and the Bartók College (National Conservatory; 1947–50). He reviewed music for the Népszava newspaper (1950–54), advised the Hungarian Recording Company and the National Philharmonic Concert Bureau (1954–57), and served as editor of the music publisher Editio Musica (1957–59), before rejoining the Liszt Academy in 1959. There he spent the rest of his career teaching music theory and composition, while continuing to compose until 1979.Sárközy won the Erkel Prize for Liliomfi and Szelistyei asszonyok (1952), and a UNESCO prize for his overture To Youth (1957). In 1975, he was accorded the status of "Merited Artist of the Hungarian People's Republic". Some of his work was recorded on the Qualiton label.He died in Budapest in 2002.