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Eugene Zador (born Jenő Zádor; 5 November 1894, Bátaszék, Hungary – 4 April 1977, Hollywood, California) was a Hungarian and American composer. [1] His parents Paula Biermann and József Zádor (orig. Zucker). He studied at the Vienna Music Academy and in Leipzig with Max Reger.
- Bátaszék
- Zádor as Student
- Zádor as Teacher
- Vienna
- New York
- Hollywood
- 1950s
- 1960s
- 1970–77
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EUGENE ZÁDORwas born in the village of Bátaszék, Hungary, on November 5, 1894. His mother, Pauline Bierman, came from a German settlement in Bosnia, and his father, Josef Zádor (orig. Zucker), likely from Czechoslovakia. They were married in Bosnia, where they stayed a few years before settling in Hungary. According to Zádor, his parents were trave...
Zádor studied piano and composition at the Conservatory in Pécs. He described his first compositions, short pieces for piano, as influenced by Schumann and Verdi. “But when, in Budapest, I heard the work of Richard Strauss, I came under his spell and especially his orchestration, which had a magical effect on me.” In an interview a half-century lat...
In 1921, Zádor settled in Vienna, where he became a professor of composition and orchestration at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium. By then, he had already written a dozen songs and piano pieces, several chamber works, and two symphonies. The first of his twelve operas, Diana, a Grand Guignol piece about a medieval knight, was premiered at the Budap...
Zádor wrote some of his most important and enduring orchestral works between the two world wars. His Variations on a Hungarian Folksong was well received when it was premiered in Vienna on February 7, 1927. Rhapsodie für grosses Orchester (1930), Kammerkonzert (1931), Symphonia Technica (1932) and Rondo for Orchestra (1933) followed and added to hi...
In New York, Zádor rented a room on West 91st St. He supported himself teaching and working as an orchestrator for the Ford Sunday Evening Hour radio program. His first success as a composer came within months of his arrival; Christopher Columbuswas given its world premiere on October 8, 1939. The German libretto had been written by Archduke Josef ...
Zádor arrived in California in early February, 1940. Describing Hollywood, he wrote in a letter, “How beautiful the mountains are and how warm the sun is… Here, people go in the ocean even in winter (not me).” During 1940 and 1941, he wrote music cues for Florian, Gallant Sons, The Mortal Storm, Escape, Edison the Man, Third Finger Left Hand, and R...
By 1950, Zádor’s household had grown to six. A son, Leslie, and a daughter, Peggy, had been born, and Maria Zádor’s parents had come from Vienna. By the mid-fifties, three nieces and their families had also settled in Los Angeles; Zádor’s younger brother and his wife were the last to emigrate, in 1956. Many decades later, a great-niece aptly descri...
In his youth, Zádor had been a doting uncle, and in middle age he became a loving, generous and protective father. When his children were small, he made up stories about a righteous giant named Goliath, who always arrived just in time to save the day. In 1960, he rewrote an earlier Children’s Symphony, which he dedicated to Leslie and Peggy. Descri...
Old age did not slow Zádor down. He continued to tell wonderful stories, to make jokes, and to compose music. As he had done all his life, he took long daily walks. Tall and rail-thin, he was a striking figure in the neighborhood. He wore a three-piece suit every day and always put on a hat when he went outdoors; if the weather was the least bit co...
Learn about the life and works of Eugene Zador, a prolific and versatile composer who wrote orchestral, chamber, vocal, and operatic music. He taught at the Vienna Conservatory and had a number of famous students, such as Kurt Herbert Adler and Ferenc Esterházy.
Eugene Zádor was the last of twentieth-century Künstler. He was a Renaissance man, equally capable of producing varied kinds of music. Musicus sum: musicali nil a me alienum puto, he could have said paraphrasing the Roman humanist Terence: “I am a musician and nothing musical is alien to me.”
Music Catalog. In addition to the catalog below, Zádor’s works are found in the Fleisher Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia, the Indiana University Music Library, the New York Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and many other libraries worldwide.
Eugene Zádor - A Children's Symphony01.- Allegro Moderato (Con Espirito) [0:00]02.- Fairy Tale [3:18]03.- Scherzo Militaire [7:26]04.- The Farm [10:10]BUDAPE...
- 17 min
- 122
- Immortal Classical Music
NAXOS 8.572548 [66:49] Zádor was one of the many expatriate European composers who fled from the spectre of Nazism during the 1930s and sought refuge in Hollywood. There he worked in the film industry – not principally as a composer but orchestrating the works of others, in particular his fellow-Hungarian Miklós Rósza.
Eugene Zádor was born on November 5, 1894, in Bátasék, Hungary. He studied with Richard Heuberger at the Vienna Conservatory (1911) and under Max Reger in Leipzig (1912-1914).
