Sándor Végh

Sándor Végh (1905 – 7 January 1997) was a Hungarian, later French, violinist and conductor. He was best known as one of the great chamber music violinists of the twentieth century.

Sándor Végh was born in 1912 in Kolozsvár, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary, (since 1920 Cluj-Napoca, Romania). His parents were not professional musicians but folk music especially was an important part of family life. At the age of six he was given a violin, “Because”, he says, “that was cheaper than a piano. My parents had no idea how much money I had to save later to be able to buy a Stradivari.” He entered the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1924, taking violin studies with Jenő Hubay and composition with Zoltán Kodály. He began a career as a solo violinist and in 1927, when he played a Richard Strauss composition under the composer’s baton. He graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1930, having won the Hubay Prize and the Reményi Prize from the institution in 1927.

As his solo career was developing, he joined the Hungarian Trio with Ilonka Krauss and László Vencze. In 1934, he became one of the founding members of the Hungarian String Quartet. He was initially the first violinist, but gave that position to Zoltán Székely and took second chair. He participated with the Hungarian String Quartet in the first Hungarian performance of Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 5.

...
Wikipedia