GYÖRGY CZIFFRA 1921-1994

f you search for Cziffra videos on YouTube, some of his performances come with a health warning. Take Liszt’s e for example. My goodness, the technique he displays: it’s positively frightening. But he goes off-piste too. He adds bits. He rearranges the structure. ‘Try not to get lost!’, advises the uploader, who helpfully jump-cuts the score back and forth so you can follow. People who love Cziffra’s playing adore his freedom and wildness: but naturally, these are also the very same qualities which drive his detractors nuts. ‘I divided the profession,’ he wrote in his 1977 memoir . ‘I became its Antichrist due to my improvisations.’ A recent survey of Cziffra in magazine repeats the criticisms. ‘It was felt that Cziffra used composers as a springboard for personal excess and idiosyncrasy… The public, weary of such exaggeration turned elsewhere in search of greater depth and spiritual refreshment.’ Maybe this is the reason that Cziffra never had a big career in the USA: he was just of a showman.