Sekey, Zoltan

Zoltan Szekey ( Hungarian. Székely Zoltán ; December 8, 1903 - October 5, 2001 , Banff , Canada ) - Hungarian violinist .

He was born in the family of a provincial doctor who enthusiastically played the violin (mainly folk music). He studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music with Eno Hubai (violin), Zoltan Kodai (composition) and Leo Weiner (chamber ensemble). Thanks to Kodai, in 1921, the year he graduated from the academy, he met Bela Bartok , with whom he had long-standing friendships: Rhapsody No. 2 (1928) and the second violin concert by the composer were dedicated to Sekoy, but he was performed for the first time on March 23, 1939 in Amsterdam ; Sekei also shifted Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances for violin and piano (1925).

In 1925, he triumphantly performed his own debut sonata for violin solo at the third festival, World Music Days in Venice . Throughout the 1920s and 30s He performed a lot as a soloist, toured in different countries of Europe (especially in Great Britain), often together with cellist Paul Herman . After his marriage in 1926 to the Dutchwoman Igninia, Everts lived mainly in the Netherlands , in 1940-1941. was a concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra , performed as a soloist with other orchestras of the country. In 1935, a house was built for the Sekei spouses in Santport near Amsterdam, according to the project of Gerrit Rietveld . From 1937 until the dissolution of the collective in 1972 , the first violin of the Hungarian Quartet , thanks to this, moved to the Netherlands. The end of Sekéy’s work in the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the beginning of a three-year break in the Quartet’s activities was the summer of 1942, when the Nazi occupation regime in the Netherlands discovered evidence of the Jewish origin of the musician, which automatically meant a ban on public speaking.

In the fall of 1945, Sekey resumed his performances with a quartet, and in 1950 the whole team moved to the United States. After the dissolution of the Sekey quartet during the 1970s. He returned to his solo career, performing mainly works written for him by Bartok; On September 26, 1977, he successfully performed for the last time in Budapest . In 1981 , in commemoration of the centenary of Bartok, he was approved as an honorary professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. The last 25 years of Sekay’s life passed in Canada; Alberta established a resident violinist for him.

Szekey’s composer's heritage is small, less than a dozen works. In 1937, after an unsuccessful attempt to present his string quartet to the musical community, he refused to practice the composition. This composition was first performed only in 1999 by the New Zealand String Quartet.