thenameisgsarci | Ervin Nyiregyhazi - Checkmate No. 2 (audio + sheet music) @thenameisgsarci | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 1 hour ago
Ervin Nyiregyházi (January 19, 1903 – April 8, 1987) was a Hungarian-born American pianist and composer. After several years on the concert stage in the 1920s, he descended into relative obscurity before briefly reemerging in the 1970s. His highly distinctive playing style, which has been seen by some as a link to the kind of Romantic pianism associated with Franz Liszt, divided critical opinion.

Nyiregyházi's father, Ignácz, was a singer in the Royal Opera Chorus in Budapest; he was also very encouraging and caring but died when Ervin was twelve. Before Ignácz's death, he reported several extraordinary things about his son: that Ervin had tried to sing before he was one year old; that he reproduced tunes correctly before he was two; he began to compose at the age of two; and that he played almost every song he heard correctly on a mouth-organ by the time he reached age three; by the age of seven Ervin could identify any note or chord that was played for him. He was known for his musicality just as much as his technique. On tests of general intelligence, Ervin scored a few years above average, meaning he was prodigy, not a savant. Ervin's mother, Mária, was a stage mother who unsuccessfully tried to dissuade him from studying opera and symphonic music and pushed her son to study the standard piano repertoire so he could concertize and make money for their family. (In later years, the pianist would claim that his mother sexually molested him.) Ervin eventually broke with his mother, and later expressed pleasure that she had perished in a Nazi concentration camp.

Nyiregyházi's musical studies took place with Ernő Dohnányi and Frederic Lamond. At the age of fifteen, Nyiregyházi played Liszt's Piano Concerto in A major, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Arthur Nikisch. His Carnegie Hall debut in 1920 was impressive but controversial. Richard Aldrich of the New York Times noted Nyiregyházi's "brilliant technical equipment, great strength of arm and fingers, remarkable dexterity, a fine feeling for piano tone" but was critical of his "often erratic and misleading" conceptions of "some of the most familiar compositions for the piano". H. T. Finck of the Evening Post praised Nyiregyházi's "originality", while criticizing his "arbitrary disregard of the obvious intentions of great composers."

In 1928, Nyiregyházi moved to Los Angeles and worked for a film studio, initially playing piano reductions of film scores, and later as a hand double. However, his inability to manage his affairs led not only to financial crises, but also to unusual career decisions. Although he continued to play occasionally, he did not own a piano for roughly forty years.

Nyiregyházi was married ten times. His first wife allegedly attacked him with a knife, leading to a messy publicized divorce. Although born into comfortable circumstances (his mother insisted that the servants tie his shoes and feed him by hand so as to relieve him of mundane concerns) he nonetheless spent the better part of his life in poverty, at times reduced to sleeping in subways.

Several public appearances in 1972 and 1973 led to studio recordings made, in 1974 and 1978, under the auspices of the International Piano Archives and the Ford Foundation. Some of these recordings were released, between 1977 and 1979, on albums on the Desmar and Columbia Masterworks labels, which briefly brought Nyiregyházi back into public view. In 1978, he was offered return concerts at Carnegie Hall, but he declined. Recitals in Japan in 1980 and 1982 constituted his last public appearances.

Ervin Nyiregyházi died from colon cancer in 1987. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Only the last of his ten wives survived him.

Nyiregyházi was also a prolific composer, writing in a Romantic style reminiscent of Liszt. Nyiregyházi was often moved to compose by outside events, and his compositions included titles such as Goetz Versus the Punks, It’s Nice to be Soused, Shotgun Wedding, and Vanishing Hope. Only a few of his compositions have ever been published or performed.

(Wikipedia)

Please take note that the audio AND sheet music ARE NOT mine. Feel free to change the video quality to a minimum of 480p for the best watching experience.

Original audio: Andrew Thayer (youtube.com/watch?v=wzcT2C5ajCQ)
Original sheet music: http://en.scorser.com/I/Sheet+music/300186970.html (Ervin Nyiregyhazi, 1951)