Tibor Varga

When Tibor Varga met the Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber in London at the end of the 1940s, a deep friendship evolved between them. Among others, Seiber dedicated to Tibor Varga his "Concert Piece", a highly virtuoso composition especially written for Varga. 

After the world première of Seiber’s Sonata for Violin and Piano performed by Tibor Varga and Hilde Findeisen (London, 1960), Seiber and Varga became engrossed in a long conversation in an attempt to define the concept of the beautiful in music. Finally, Seiber said: 

“Ultimately, I always come back to a very simple thought: If God let me choose a piece of music in the last minute of my life, I would have to choose between the slow movement of the Mozart Quintet [K. 516] or, perhaps even more, Schubert’s String Quintet [Op. 163, D 956].”

When Seiber was the victim of a tragic accident in South Africa shortly afterwards, Tibor Varga decided to record Schubert’s String Quintet, Op. 163, in memory of his friend – a work that Schubert himself had completed only a few weeks before his death.

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Tibor Varga Legacy, Vol. 15: Schubert, String Quintet