Kristóf Baráti lived in Venezuela between 1981 and 1991. He began his musical studies with his mother, Borbála Kákonyi, and continued them in Caracas under the guidance of Emil Friedman.[1] At the age of eight he gave his first concert with orchestra there –performing a Vivaldi concerto with the Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra. [2] At eleven, he gave a solo recital at the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier, and during the same period he also performed in Japan and in Hungary.[3]
Although he had the opportunity to study in New York, he chose instead to return to Hungary.[4] In 1991 he became a student at the School for Exceptional Young Talents at the Liszt Academy of Music, where his teachers were Miklós Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tátrai, the legendary leader of the Tátrai String Quartet. During this period, he won first prize at the ‘Rodolfo Lipizer’ International Competition in Gorizia (1995), and second prize at the ‘Jacques Thibaud’ International Competition in Paris (1996).[5]
It was at the ‘Jacques Thibaud’ International Competition that Baráti was discovered by Eduard Wulfson, director of the Stradivarius Society. From 1996 he studied with Wulfson in Paris. Wulfson was a follower of the traditions of the Russian violin school, which he had learned from Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, and Henryk Szeryng – an influence that also left a deep mark on the young Baráti. [6] Thanks in part to this transition, the following year he won third prize and a special award at the ‘Queen Elisabeth’ International Competition in Brussels, becoming its youngest ever laureate (1997). [7] Since this training did not provide a formal diploma, Baráti only obtained his official degree much later, in 2012, at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs.[8]
In 2001 Baráti was the soloist of the opening concert of the ‘Festival international de musique de Colmar’ in France. At that year’s festival, dedicated to the memory of József Szigeti, he performed Brahms’s Violin Concerto (Op. 77) at the opening concert, with the orchestra conducted by Vladimir Spivakov.[9] At the invitation of the French Senate, he appeared at the closing concert of the ‘Raphael: Grace and Beauty’ exhibition at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris with a challenging program: two solo sonatas by Eugène Ysaÿe, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’s ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita in E major (BWV 1006). He performed these works on the 1734 ‘ex-Haddock’ Guarneri del Gesù violin.[10]
On 18 June 2002, at a concert sponsored by the Pleyel Foundation, he had the opportunity to perform in a single evening all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006), thereby repeating Nathan Milstein’s achievement.[11] A further point of interest of the concert was that he played on the 1706 ‘ex-Cobett’ Stradivari. On 13 September of the same year, Baráti was the soloist of the opening concert of the ‘József Szigeti’ International Violin Competition in Budapest.[12]
In 2003 he played several gala concerts in France with the Orchestre National de France conducted by Kurt Masur.[13] In August 2004 he undertook a highly successful three-week concert tour in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marcello Viotti. In the same year he also gave numerous important concerts in France, Italy, and the United States.[14] In 2005 he made his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (Op. 64, MWV O14) with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Roger Epple.[15] His first concert in Germany followed the next year, 2006, at the Berlin Philharmonie, where he played with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Karabits.[16]
In October 2010 – much to many people’s surprise – he entered the Moscow ‘Paganini’ International Competition, where he won the first prize, often referred to as the ‘Oscar of violinists’. [17] In 2012 he was among the first artists to sign with the new agency of Tamás Körner, former director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which gave his career an additional boost. [18]
Thanks to his 2010 victory and his new management, during the 2010s Baráti performed with world stars such as Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Valery Gergiev, worked with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and the NHK Symphony, and appeared at prestigious festivals including the Marlboro Festival founded by Rudolf Serkin. [19] On 21 January 2015 he gave a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in New York. [20] In 2016 he is scheduled to make his debut at the Verbier Festival. [21] In 2014, according to the ranking compiled by Bachtracks.com, Kristóf Baráti was the world’s most sought-after violinist.[22]
Up to 2016, in addition to those already mentioned, Baráti appeared as soloist with, among others, the Hungarian National Philharmonic, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Marinsky Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with Marek Janowski, Charles Dutoit, Jiří Bělohlávek, Mikhail Pletnev, Jakub Hrůša, Andrew Manze, Yuri Temirkanov, Iván Fischer, and Zoltán Kocsis. His chamber music partners have included, among others, Richard Goode, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Zoltán Kocsis, and Kim Kashkashian. [23]
Kristóf Baráti’s first recordings were released by Saphir Productions: one disc containing sonatas by Bartók, Ravel, and Bowen (2007), and the live recording of his 2002 Bach concert (2003). Around 2010 he made two recordings for Berlin Classics: one featuring Paganini’s First and Second Violin Concertos with the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover conducted by Eiji Oue (2009, new edition in 2014), the other a studio recording of Bach’s solo works (2010). From 2012 he signed with Brilliant Classics, under whose label appeared in cooperation with Klára Würtz Beethoven’s complete sonata cycle (2012) and the complete Brahms sonatas (2014), the Ysaÿe solo sonatas (2013), and a Korngold disc with Gábor Farkas and the Philharmonie Zuidnederland conducted by Otto Tausk (2015). In 2016 he recorded a CD of celebrated encores with Gábor Farkas for Hungaroton, entitled The Soul of the Lady Harmsworth. [24] Between 2013 and 2015 he was artist-in-residence at the Zsolnay Quarter in Pécs.[25] Since 2015, together with István Várdai, he has served as the new artistic director of the Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival.[26]
Since 2001 he has taught at several international masterclasses in France: at the academy held in the Château de Champs-sur-Marne, organized by Wulfson—alongside, among others, Ida Haendel, Vadim Repin, and Natalia Gutman—and at the Sorbonne Summer Festival (2005).[27] In July 2004 he was invited to give masterclasses in Modena and Puigcerdà.[28] From 2012 he has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs. In the summer of 2011, he founded the highly successful Tihany Music Days string masterclass, which between 2012 and 2014 continued under the name Pécs Music Days.[29] Kristóf Baráti has also been conducting since 2011. As conductor, he is a regular guest of the Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra, and has also appeared with the Zugló Philharmonic, the Kodály Philharmonic in Debrecen, and the Szeged Symphony Orchestra, among others. [30]
From the late 2000s he received several major awards: the Junior Prima Award (2009), followed two years later by Hungary’s highest musical honor, the Liszt Prize (2011), and three years after that the Kossuth Prize (2014). In the same year he was awarded the Bartók–Pásztory Prize (2014), and one year later the Prima Award (2015). Since 2014 he has been a corresponding member of the Music Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Since 2004 he has played the 1703 ‘Lady Harmsworth’ Stradivarius, thanks to the Stradivari Society of Chicago. [31]
[2016]
[1] http://info.bmc.hu/index.php?node=artists&table=ZENESZ&id=129 (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[2] Zsuzsanna Sándor: " A zene Oscar-díjasa." 168 Óra Online 24/06/2015 http://www.168ora.hu/itthon/barati-kristof-hegedumuvesz-stradivari-vilaghirnev-korner-tamas-136313.html (Last visited 10 April 2016).
[3] http://msso-kogan.com/en/afisha/guest_artists/sendvalues/more/220/ (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[4] Sándor: " A zene Oscar-díjasa."
[5] See: http://www.lipizer.it/il-concorso-di-violino-english/index.php (last visited 9 April 2016) and http://www.long-thibaud-crespin.org/en-gb/recherche-des-laureats.html?fiche_laureat=1928&mode=show&v_onglet=nom&v_submit=1&v_concours=violon&v_lettre=B (last visited 9 April 2016)
[6] http://info.bmc.hu/index.php?node=artists&table=ZENESZ&id=129 (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elisabeth_Competition (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[8] http://pte.hu/en_is_pecsett/barati_kristof and Attila Kovács: " Baráti Kristóf Mester(i)-diplomája Pécsett." Eozin 04/06/2012 http://www.eozinmagazin.hu/cikk/Barati_Kristof_pecsi_Mesteri-diplomaja_Schubertbol_es_Brahmsbol (Last visited 9 April 2016).
[9] http://archive.festival-colmar.com/fr/le-festival-de-colmar-topmenu-75/anciennes-tions-topmenu-284/1146-festival-2001 (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[10] http://www.radioswissclassic.ch/de/musiker/kuenstler/544192006cd795f580808f1465b6fc794838c2/biography (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[11] ibid.
[12] See, for example, Kristóf Csengery, " Hangverseny." Muzsika 45/12 (December 2002), 42-47. 44.
[13] http://msso-kogan.com/en/afisha/guest_artists/sendvalues/more/220/ (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[14] See for example http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/classic/daily/stories/s1169659.htm (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[15] ibid.
[16] ibid.
[17] http://fidelio.hu/klasszikus/2010/10/26/barati_kristof_nyerte_a_paganini_hegeduversenyt/ (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[18] http://fidelio.hu/klasszikus/2012/04/10/zenei_ugynokseget_inditott_korner_tamas/ (Last accessed 10 April 2016) or Sándor: "The Oscar winner of music".
[19] Ur Máté: "Baráti Kristóf: "Minden művész vágya, hogy jusson idő a kamarazenére" Fidelio 08.06.2015. http://fidelio.hu/klasszikus/2015/06/08/barati_kristof_minden_muvesz_vagya_hogy_jusson_ido_a_kamarazenere/ (Last visited: 10 April 2016)
[20] http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2015/1/21/0730/PM/Kristof-Barati/ (Last visited 10 April 2016.
[21] http://kristofbarati.com/about/ (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[22] http://mno.hu/grund/barati-kristof-a-vilag-legkeresettebb-hegeduse-1267764 (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[23] http://kristofbarati.com/about/ (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[24] http://kristofbarati.com/discography/ (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[25] http://www.pecsiujsag.hu/pecs/hir/helyi-hireink/pecsi-kulturalis-intezmenyeket-nepszerusito-program-indul (last visited 10 April 2016) and http://www.ma.hu/kulturport.hu/238045/Vardai_Istvan_csellista_lett_a_Kodaly_Kozpont_uj_rezidens_muvesze (last visited 10 April 2016)
[26] http://kaposvarmost.hu/hirek/kaposvari-hirek/2015/04/09/uj-fellepoi-kor-fele-nyit-a-kaposfest_16564.html (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[27] http://www.radioswissclassic.ch/de/musiker/kuenstler/544192006cd795f580808f1465b6fc794838c2/biography (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[28] http://info.bmc.hu/index.php?node=artists&table=ZENESZ&id=129 (Last visited 9 April 2016)
[29] http://www.pecsizeneinapok.hu/?page=baratikristof&loc=hu (Last visited 10 April 2016)
[30] Anna F. Szalai: " Nemcsak játszik, vezényel is Baráti Kristóf." Délmagyar 09.02.2016. http://www.delmagyar.hu/szeged_hirek/nemcsak_jatszik_vezenyel_is_barati_kristof/2462656/ (Last visited: 10 April 2016)
[31] https://www.theviolinsite.com/violin_making/strad-violins.html (Last visited 10 April 2016) For the history of the instrument, see http://www.ervinviolins.com/restored/harmsworth_violin.shtml (Last visited 9 April 2016)