Gyorgy Sandor, 93; Pianist Specialized in Works of Bartok, Prokofiev, Kodaly

Pianist Gyorgy Sandor, who was a protege of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok and toured the world into his 90s while teaching at the Juilliard School, has died. He was 93.

Sandor died Friday of heart failure at his home in New York City, according to his son Michael.

A native of Budapest, Hungary, Sandor studied piano with Bartok and composition with Zoltan Kodaly at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. He performed worldwide in the 1930s, making his Carnegie Hall debut in 1939, and premiered many of Bartok’s piano works.

Sandor was best known for his performances and recordings of the music of Bartok, Kodaly and Prokofiev. He recorded the complete solo piano works of Sergey Prokofiev and Kodaly, and the piano music and concertos of Bartok, for which he won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1965.

Sandor was praised for his subtlety and articulation in Bartok’s difficult music.

“His playing serves as a chastisement to those who play Bartok with percussive sound,” Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times wrote in a review of a four-disc set Sandor recorded a dozen years ago.

The pianist gave his final public performance in Turkey last spring.

In addition to Juilliard, Sandor taught at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

He wrote “On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound and Expression,” a book published in 1981, and finished the manuscript of a book about Bartok and his works.