Varga, Tibor
Varga, Tibor
Varga, Tibor respected Hungarian-born English violinist, conductor, and pedagogue, father of Gilbert (Anthony) Varga; b. Györ, July 4, 1921. He was a pupil of Hubay at the Budapest Academy of Music and of Flesch at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and also studied philosophy at the Univ. of Budapest. He made his debut at 10 and, following World War II, pursued an international career as a violin virtuoso. In 1949 he became a prof, of violin at the North West German Music Academy in Detmold, where he founded the Tibor Varga Chamber Orch. in 1954. In 1955 he settled in Switzerland and in 1964 he organized the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion, where he oversaw his own music academy and international violin competition; he also taught master classes at the Salzburg Mozarteum. He continued to conduct his chamber orch. until 1988, and then was music director of l’Orchestre des Pays de Savoie à Annecy from 1989. While he was admired for his performances of the standard violin repertoire, he won special distinction for his championship of such modern masters as Nielsen, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg, Bartok, and Blacher.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire