At the age of five Zoltan Kocsis began five years of piano studies with a local teacher named Szmrecsany who introduced the boy to the works of Bartók. At ten he enrolled at the Bartók Conservatory where he studied piano and composition. At sixteen Kocsis continued his musical education at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest studying with Pál Kadosa, Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág. Winning the Beethoven Competition sponsored by Hungarian radio when he was only eighteen ignited Kocsis’s career. Whilst still studying at the Academy he made his adult début in Budapest, and toured Hungary. The following year he played in Dresden and then toured the United States. At the age of only twenty-one Kocsis was awarded the Liszt Prize by the Hungarian government and...