Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!

                Mark Farago, pianist  (photo courtesy of the artist)

There is a plethora of fine, young pianists, most much too good for the fate that awaits them. Every once in a while one stumbles on a pianist who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Mark Farago is such a pianist.

Farago was born in Hungary where he studied at the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Szeged.  Subsequent study at the music conservatories in Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland led him to Vienna where he had the opportunity to study with Leonid Brumberg, himself a former pupil and assistant of the great Russian pianist and pedagogue, Heinrich Neuhaus.  Neuhaus was the teacher of Emil Gilels, Radu Lupu, Sviatoslav Richter, Yakov Zak, Eliso Virsaladze, Vladimir Krainev and Lev Naumov, some of the supreme pianists to have come out of the Soviet block in the 20th Century.  Farago is of this class of artist and shows every sign of being a worthy peer of Gilels, Richter and Zak.

He has a broad repertoire ranging from Bach and Mozart to 20th Century composers with Liszt as a centerpiece.  One cannot help believing to have found in him the true voice of the great Hungarian master. His technical capabilities are unimpeachable but he manages to understate the technical aspects which allows the musical qualities to come to the fore.  This is particularly apparent in the Transcendental Etudes where the technical difficulties are substantial and can become the point of the  music if not properly subjugated.

Farago's is big, bold Chopin, beautifully crafted. sensitively played, and structurally very sound. This is especially true in the longer works which at the hands of a lesser pianist can suffer from a lack of structural cohesion and direction.  His playing of Chopin's Polonaises is perfection, a polonaise as a stately dance rather than the thundering gallops we are accustomed to hearing.

His performances of the Rachmaninov Préludes are simply beautiful.  Interestingly, his interpretations do not have the dark, brooding quality displayed by some of the great Russian pianists. Rather he exploits some of the other elements that are in this music and usually neglected. In the Opus 32 B minor Prélude, one hears sonorities reminiscent of Ravel; in the Opus 23 D minor Prélude, a hint of the polyphony of Bach. Each Prélude seems to have been contemplated anew, without external influence, and a fresh vision of the music is the result.  Mark Farago's conceptions of this music are entirely justified.

Such beautiful playing is his, incredible in detail, wondrous of touch, and supremely convincing interpretations.

Mark Farago is hardly known outside his native Hungary and the surrounding countries of Austria,Switzerland and Germany where he has concertized extensively.  But many of his performances are accessible in live recordings of his concerts.  It is time that the world discovered this enormous talent and placed him where he belongs among a small handful of the truly great pianists of our time.

Below is a recording that demonstrates every aspect of the magnitude of Mr. Farago's art, the Transcendental Etude No 11 Harmonies du Soir by Franz Liszt.

Harmonies du Soir Part I 

Harmonies du Soir Part II