László Somfai, 1934–2026

László Somfai, a leading figure in international musicology since 1960 and an honorary foreign member of the Society, died on 11 February 2026, in Budapest.

Somfai was born on 15 August 1934, in Jászladány, Hungary.  He studied musicology at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy, Budapest, with Dénes Bartha and Bence Szabolcsi, during which time he wrote a seminal study of style in Haydn’s string quartets: A klasszikus kvartetthangzás megszületése Haydn vonósnégyeseiben (Zenetudományi Tanulmányok, vol. 8, 1960).  From 1980 to 2004 he was Professor of Musicology at the Liszt Academy (honorary doctorate, 1982). He was the founding president of the Hungarian Musicological Society; President of the International Musicological Society (1994–98); and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the Joseph Haydn-Institut (Cologne), and the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung (Salzburg).  He lectured and gave seminars at many North American universities, most prominently Cornell and California, Berkeley.

In 1960 appeared the fundamental volume by Somfai and Bartha (based primarily on Somfai’s research), Haydn als Opernkapellmeister: Die Haydn-Dokumente der Esterházy-Opernsammlung (Budapest, 1960). There followed Joseph Haydn: Sein Leben in zeitgenössischen Bildern (Budapest and Kassel, 1966; English translation 1970) and Joseph Haydn zongoraszonátái: Hangszerválasztás és eloadói gyakorlat, mufaji tipológia és stílselemzés (Budapest, 1979; English The Keyboard Sonatas of Joseph Haydn: Instruments and Performance Practice, Genres and Styles, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995).  In addition he published dozens of specialized articles on Haydn’s music, notably the string quartets, musical sketches and issues of notation, performance practice, and analysis.

Somfai’s importance for Bartók studies was if anything even greater.  From 1972 to 2005 he led the Bartók Archive of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.  In 1989 he delivered the Ernst Bloch lectures at the University of California, Berkeley; these led to his pathbreaking study Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Univ. of California Press, 1996).  He was the founding General Editor of the ongoing Béla Bartók: Complete Critical Edition (Editio Musica, Budapest; Henle, Munich), and compiled a comprehensive thematic catalogue of Bartók’s works, now in preparation for publication (Henle).  As with Haydn, these fundamental works are joined by dozens of specialized articles, reviews, and the like.

The most original aspect of Somfai’s research was his multifaceted approach to musical sources.  He strove for an ‘authentic’ understanding of the music in relation to its genesis, its notation, and its manner of performance.  In this effort he was resolutely original and undogmatic, going far beyond conventional approaches.  In 2005 the Scarecrow Press published Essays in Honor of László Somfai on his 70th Birthday, ed. László Vikárius and Vera Lampert.

Somfai was a remarkable person and a close friend of hundreds of musicologists and musicians, among them this writer.  He will be sorely missed, and long remembered.

—James Webster