Gábor Darvas

was born on 18 January, 1911 at Szatmárnémeti. He moved to Budapest with his family in 1918. He studied at the Academy of Music between 1926 and 1932, first the basoon, then composition (with Zoltán Kodály). His orchestral works were performed at public concerts and in the radio in the 1930's.

In 1939, Darvas left Hungary and spent the war years in South America. Initially, he was a close associate of Erich Kleiber's, later he contributed articles to music journals.

He returned to Hungary in 1948. In 1949-1950 he was music producer in Hungarian Radio, in 1953-1960 he was music reader there. In 1955-1957, Darvas was editor-in-chief of Editio Musica Budapest, he was artistic director of Hungaroton, the Hungarian Record Company in 1957-1959 and in 1960-1972 he worked as music advisor to Artisjus, the Hungarian Copyright Office.

Beyond composing, Darvas was also active in exploring the musical treasures of European culture, he arranged a great many compositions and published numerous books.

Gábor Darvas died in Budapest on 18 February, 1985.

***

Source:
Contemporary Hungarian Composers
Edited by Bálint András Varga
Editio Musica Budapest
© 1989

Darvas (Steinberger), Gábor
[...]
Hungarian composer and musicologist. He studied composition under Kodály at the Budapest Academy of Music (1929-32).
From 1939 to 1948 he lived in Chile where he worked as assistant conductor to Kleiber (1939-41) and later as a musicologist. After returning to Hungary he continued this work.
He began to compose only in the 1960s, combining ideas drawn from Bartók's music with aleatoricism and serialism in the orchestral pieces 'Improvisations symphoniques' and 'Sectio aurea'; this synthesis was developed in the works that followed.
Darvas was one of the first Hungarian composers to work with tape - his 'Medália' ('Medal') was given at Darmstadt in 1968 [...] .

F. András Wilhelm

***

Source:
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
© 1980