Tivadar Szántó

Tivadar Szántó (also known as Theodor Szanto; June 3, 1877 – January 7, 1934) was a Hungarian pianist and composer. He was born in Vienna and died in Budapest. He came from the Jewish Shmulevich family and was the uncle of the conductor László Halász.

From 1893 he studied at the Budapest Academy of Music with Kálmán Chován and Hans von Koessler, and later in Berlin with Ferruccio Busoni (1898–1901). He gave concerts in Berlin, performing Beethoven and Liszt sonatas as well as his own works.

In 1905 Szántó moved to Paris, and from 1914 lived in Switzerland; in 1922 he returned to Hungary. He toured widely as a soloist and chamber musician and was regarded as one of the significant pianists of his time. He was especially known as an interpreter of French music (notably Ravel and Debussy) and Hungarian music (notably Bartók and Kodály). Among his students were Luis Ascot and Berta Alves de Souza.

As a composer and arranger, he produced numerous piano transcriptions of organ and choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach, and prepared a five-movement piano suite arranged from Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrushka.” In 1906, at Frederick Delius’s request, he rewrote the piano part of Delius’s concerto to make it more brilliant and virtuoso; Szántó gave the first performance of this author-approved version in 1907 and later performed it again in 1912, 1913, and 1921, while the original 1904 version continued to be played as well.

Szántó was interested in Japanese music, and Japanese influence is evident in at least three of his compositions (an opera and orchestral and piano suites). Some of these “Japanese” works were recorded in 1999 by Noriko Ogawa. His selected works include the opera “Taifun” (staged in 1924 in Mannheim), “Oriental Studies,” Op. 1, “Dramatic Elegy,” Op. 3, and the suite “Contrasts” (1912). In 1931 he was awarded the Legion of Honour.

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