Index – Culture – János Kárpáti passed away

The father of music historian János Kárpáti, playwright, actor and director Péter Kárpáti, who died at the age of 88 after a long serious illness, the Index learned.

János Kárpáti was born on July 11, 1932 in Budapest. He began his studies at the Liszt Ferenc University of Music in violin class from 1949 to 1951 in György Garai’s class, then studied with Dénes Bartha, Bence Szabolcsi and Lajos Bárdos, where he obtained his diploma in music history in 1956. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1968 and his academic doctorate in 1995. Between 2000 and 2003 he was a fellow professor at Széchenyi.

The internationally renowned researcher was a leading figure at Liszt Ferenc University of Music, an honorary university professor at the institute for 45 years. He was director of the library of the Academy of Music from 1961 to 2005, during which time he held senior positions in various international professional organizations. From 1980 to 1986 he was vice president of the International Association of Music Libraries and from 1998 to 2007 he was president of the Hungarian Society of Musicology and Music Criticism.

Although he carried out his research on the history of music on a large scale, two themes stand out in his professional work: the work of Béla Bartók (Bartók’s string quartets, Bartók’s chamber music, Bartók’s analytics) and his study of Asian musical culture, Dancing in front of the heavenly cave).

He has lectured at universities in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, France, and Italy. His work was recognized with the Erkel Prize in 1971, the Grand Prize of the National Association of Hungarian Artists in 1991, the “Prize of Excellence” medal of the American Liszt Society in 1996, the Széchenyi Prize in 2005 and the Crown of József. Eötvös. from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2005. el.

Music historian Tibor Tallián wrote of his colleague:

His work in the Carpathians is not only driven by the allure of distance, but is also influenced by the recognition of the real nature of distance. A reliable image, at the same time wide and detailed, can only be created for oneself and transmitted to others who move at a human pace, on foot. It is also known to walk on water on foot. You can travel to distant islands with dry feet. As János Kárpáti did.