Taken from the old website. Original post date: July 9, 2005

I am often asked to repeat his name…
Cziffra – Gyorgy Cziffra.

(OK, so it’s not as easy to remember as Bond – James Bond.)

But I am very pleased to see the revival of Cziffra amongst today’s listening audience. Gyorgy Cziffra was a Hungarian composer/pianist who lived at the heart of the 20th century’s greatest virtuosi. Although he was born in 1921 to a poor family of gypsy musicians, it wasn’t until 1947 that he was able to grow his career due to military services and even being a POW. In spite of wide acclaim, he (like Horowitz at one point) abandoned his career until the early 1990s when he gave a concert in Paris.