Kraus-Pikler Recitals

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 408, 18 April 1947, Page 17

Kraus-Pikler Recitals

OBERT PIKLER, a Hungarian violinist who was interned in Java by the Japanese, and has since been in Australia, will atrive in New Zealand shortly to give chamber music recitals with Lili Kraus, who likewise is a Hungarian, and was _ interned in Java. Lili Kraus and Robert Pikler will be touring the Dominion for some weeks, and they will broadcast from each of the Main © National Stations. Their first broadcast will be given this Sunday, April 20, from the Studio of 1YA, at 8.15 p.m. As we go to press, final details of all the programmes themselves are not available, but the repertoire will. consist of the ten Sonatas for piano and violin, of Beethoven (this Sunday, the "Kreutzer"’), some of Mozart’s, and some of the Sonatinas of Schubert. The

duo will also at some time play a work designated (in .contradistinction to those of the classical composers) a "Sonata for Violin and Piano" -by Claude Debussy. Pikler studied in Budapest with Eugene Ormandy (who was then a concert violinist there) and later at. the

Royal Conservatory, where his teachers were Zsolt and Hubay. On leaving the Conservatory he formed a chamber orchestra, and took it to Germany, Austria, and Italy, and then in 1934 to _ India. From there he went to Java and broadcast a good deal from the

N.I.R.O.M. stations — conducting the orchestra (which comprised Russians and other European musicians), playing concertos for the violin, and giving sonata recitals with Lili Kraus. When the Japanese came, Pikler was arrested, and was imprisoned for four months before being sent to an internment camp. His violin was seized, and never recovered. During his second year of internment, a fellow prisoner lent him a makeshift violin, but he had little strength for practice. After his release Pikler went :to Singapore and joined ENSA — entertaining the Forces. Then he went to Australia and continued studying with Szymon Goldberg (with whom he _ had studied in Java). He became leader of the Musica Viva Chamber Music Society in Sydney, and is now married to Lois Simp-

son, formerly of Christchurch, who is a ’cellist. Pikler is a crack chess player, and as a youth won a master diploma from the Hungarian Chess Federation. He is an old friend of Australia’s chess champion, Lojos Steiner, and stayed with him when he arrived there.