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| Bela Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin arranged for 5 Stringed Cello by Laszlo Varga |
Renowned cellist Laszlo Varga passed away December 11, 2014.
Born in 1924, Varga studied at the Franz Liszt Royal Academy of Music in Budapest.
After escaping the forced labor camps in Hungary during World War II, Varga
immigrated to the United States, serving eleven years as the principal cellist of
the New York Philharmonic. He was a featured performer and respected teacher at
the Aspen, Chautauqua and Shreveport music festivals, among many others. In
addition, he conducted major orchestras such as the Budapest Symphony and the
San Leandro Symphony. For twenty-five years, Varga served as both director and
conductor of the San Francisco State University Symphony. Among his many awards
and recognitions, Varga was presented the distinguished title of
"Chevalier du Violoncelle" by Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at
Indiana University in 1991.
Laszlo Varga donated his musical score collection to the Martha
Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives in 2005. This
impressive collection contains over fifty transcriptions for solo cello and
cello ensemble, including his solo cello transcriptions of the Bach D minor and
E major violin partitas and his arrangement of Strauss’ “Don Quixote, Op. 35” for
cello, viola, violin, clarinet, horn, and piano. UNCG celebrated this
pioneering artist’s legacy in 2007 by hosting the Laszlo Varga Cello Music
Celebration. Varga is the eighth cellist represented in the UNCG Cello Music
Collection, the largest single holding of cello music related literature in the
world.
University Libraries is honoring the memory of this
world-class performer, teacher, and arranger of cello music through the digitization
of portions of his collection. The Laszlo Varga Digital Collection contains
many of Varga’s unpublished manuscript arrangements, promoting his legacy to
cellists worldwide.
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| Laszlo Varga at the UNCG Cello Music Celebration held in his honor, 2007 |
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