Endre Szervánszky was a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 composer.

Biography

(Note: There appears to be some discrepancy regarding the composer's birth date. Valeria Szervánszky

Valeria Szervánszky

Valeria Szervánszky . Hungarian pianist, born in Budapest and now a resident of the United Kingdom. She is a classical pianist.-Biography:...

 is certain that this one is correct.)

Szervánszky studied the clarinet at the Budapest Academy of Music (1922–7). He played in various orchestras before returning to the academy to study composition with Albert Siklós

Albert Siklós

Albert Siklós was a Hungarian composer.Siklós studied at Budapest's music academy under Hans von Koessler...

 (1931–6). He then worked as an orchestrator for the Hungarian Radio and taught musical theory. He was appointed professor of composition at the Budapest Academy in 1948.

Szervánszky first came to public attention with his First String Quartet (1936–8) and his works of this period were influenced by his compatriots, Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....

 and Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

. Works for this time include the Clarinet Serenade (1950) and the Flute Concerto (1952–3).

From the early 1950s Szervánszky embarked on a series of larger compositions, one of the longest being the Concerto for Orchestra in memory of Attila József

Attila József

Attila József was one of the most important and well-known Hungarian poets of the 20th century.-Biography:The son of Áron József, a soap factory worker of Romanian origin from Bánát, and Hungarian peasant girl Borbála Pőcze, he was born in Ferencváros, a poor district of Budapest. He had two elder...

. Each of the concerto’s five movements is based on a quotation from József. The fourth has folk music elements and the whole demonstrates the influence of Bartók. Both the String Quartet no.2 (1956–7) and the Wind Quintet no.2 (1957) also demonstrate the composer’s increasing interest in serialism

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

.

For his Six Orchestra Pieces, composed in 1959, Szervánszky employed 12-note serialism and the piece is particular in its use of percussion. Szervánszky did not compose another major work until 1963 – the oratorio Requiem, based on a text by János Pilinszky

János Pilinszky

János Pilinszky was a Hungarian poet.Well known within the Hungarian borders for his vast influence on postwar Hungarian poetry, Pilinszky’s style includes a juxtaposition of Roman Catholic faith and intellectual disenchantment...

 which takes the concentration camp of Auschwitz as its theme. Works which followed include the Variations (1964) and the Clarinet Concerto (1965).

Endre Szervánszky was given the "Righteous among the Nations

Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

" award by the State of Israel to honour non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis.

He is the brother of artist, Jenö Szervánszky

Jenö Szervánszky

- Biography :The following is an adaption of an article on the web site dedicated to the Szervánszky family - Early StudyJenö Szervánszky studied with Oszkár Glatz at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest...

, violinst, Peter Szervánszky

Peter Szervánszky

Péter Szervánszky was a Hungarian violinist.On 5 January 1944, Péter gave the first performance in Hungary of Béla Bartók's 2nd violin concerto. Bartók had already left Hungary for the United States and left the score with the eminent musicologist Bence Szabolcsi...

 and the uncle of Valeria Szervánszky

Valeria Szervánszky

Valeria Szervánszky . Hungarian pianist, born in Budapest and now a resident of the United Kingdom. She is a classical pianist.-Biography:...

.

Works

Stage and vocal works

• Napkeleti mese – “Oriental Tale”, (a "dance play") 1948–9
• Népdalszvit – “Folksong Suite”, 1949
• Honvédkantáta – “Soldier’s Cantata”, 1949
• Tavaszi Szél – “Spring Breeze” (cantata), 1950
• 8 Petőfi Songs, 1951
• 3 Petőfi Choruses, 1953
• 3 Songs, 1956–7
• 3 Male Choruses (ancient China), 1958
• Requiem – “Dark Heaven” to words by János Pilinszky (oratorio), 1963
• Az éj – “The Night” (cantata), 1974–5

Orchestra

• 3 divertimentos, 1939, 1942, 1943
• Serenade, strings, 1947–8
• Rhapsody, 1950
• Serenade for clarinet and orchestra, 1950
• Flute Concerts, 1952–3
• Concerts for Orchestra, 1954
• 6 Orchestral Pieces, 1959
• Variations, 1964
• Clarinet Concerto, 1965

Chamber

• String Quartet no.1, 1936–8
• 20 Little Duos for 2 violins, 1941
• Sonata for violin and piano, 1945
• 25 Duos for 2 violins, 1946
• Trio for flute, violin and viola, 1951
• Sonatina for flute, and piano, 1952
• Wind Quintet no.1, 1953
• 5 Koncert etűd – “5 Concert Etudes” for flute, 1956
• Suite for 2 flutes, 1956
• String Quartet No.2, 1956–7
• Wind Quintet no.2, 1957
• 2 Duos for 2 flutes, 1972
• 7 Studies for flute, 1974–5

Piano

• Folksong Suite, 4 hands, 1935
• Little Suite, 1939
• Sonatina, 1941
• Sonatina, 4 hands, 1950