# Cziffra



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Found this clip on YouTube of Thomas Vasary on Cziffra. He went into a night club where Cziffra was playing and thought there must be four hands at work. Vasary calls him a 'phenomenon'. I agree.






Any thoughts?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Liszt´s _Hungarian Rhapsodies_, some of the _Annees de Pelerinage _pieces and some of the Chopin_ Etudes _show him at his best, including the phenomenal technique and the resulting clarity.

Otherwise, there can be a bit too much of bang-bang to my taste or a lack of lyricism in his recordings.

Among the concerto recordings, none I´ve heard are among my prefered ones. But an interesting pianist & I usually check it out, when I see something by him.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Posted this elsewhere but a reminder that Cziffra made a living as a boy improvising in a circus. Dig this for his warm up:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Found this clip on YouTube of Thomas Vasary on Cziffra. He went into a night club where Cziffra was playing and thought there must be four hands at work. Vasary calls him a 'phenomenon'. I agree.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If Vasary speaks I believe anything


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It's a shame Cziffra has become so associated with virtuosic piano playing, because it doesn't do his art justice. Just listen, for example, to his couperin or his Schumann or his Brahms or his Beethoven or his Chopin. 

I'm not very keen on Liszt, so I haven't heard so much from Cziffra of that. But I do recall that he recorded some Liszt for Hungaroton at HMV's studios in Paris which was excellent - including a small number of Hungarian Rhapsodies. The other Liszt from him that I've heard has impressed me less, but it could just be that I'm not very sympathetic to the music. 

The Cziffra recordings I like include:

The flight of the bumblebee, 1957
The 1956 Hungarian Rhapsodies
Brahms Paganini Variations
The Couperin live at Senlis
The Chopin Waltzes
the Chopin Etudes
The studio Beethoven, especially the Appassionata and Waldstein
The Brahms Hungarian dances live at Senlis
The paraphrases and transcriptions CD on Hungaroton.

If he has a major shortcoming for me it's that he's colourless - the sound he makes is always grey.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Cziffra's version of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies from the late 1950s on EMI is a wonderful set I find his playing to be very engaging

I don't recognise 'colourless' as being an apt descriptor of his playing - but each to their own


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