Gyorgy Sandor, a piano protégé of Bela Bartok who went on to become one of the world's prominent authorities on that composer's music, died of congestive heart failure at his home in New York City on Friday, December 9, 2005. He was 93.

A member of Juilliard's piano faculty since 1982, Mr. Sandor was widely sought-after as a teacher. Before joining Juilliard's faculty, he was the director of piano studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from 1961 to 1981, and taught at Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1956 to 1961. Among his prominent students were Malcolm Bilson, Hélène Grimaud, Barbara Nissman, and Ezequiel Viñao. Sandor also gave master classes at the Paris Conservatoire, the Jerusalem Music Center, Holland Music Sessions, and Mozarteum Salzburg.

Gyorgy Sandor coaching Bartok's Contrasts for clarinet, violin, and piano during ChamberFest 2002. (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

"The Juilliard School is deeply saddened by the death of Gyorgy Sandor, one of the great pianists and teachers of our time," said President Joseph W. Polisi. "His artistry and personal sophistication made him a respected colleague and good friend to all who knew him."

Gyorgy Sandor was born in Budapest on September 21, 1912. He studied piano with Bartok and composition with Zoltan Kodaly at the Liszt Academy, and throughout his career was a champion of Bartok's music. Sandor gave the premiere of Bartok's Third Piano Concerto in February 1946, a year after the composer's death, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. He also gave first performances of Bartok's own piano versions of the Concerto for Orchestra and Dance Suite. The two maintained a lifelong friendship; Sandor was one of only 10 people to attend Bartok's funeral. He also had connections with some of the great pianists and composers of the early 20th century, including Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Josef Lhévinne, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

His career as a concert pianist blossomed in the 1930s when he toured throughout Europe. He settled in the United States in 1939, shortly after his American debut at Carnegie Hall, and maintained an active career well into the latter part of the 20th century. In a New York Times review in 1985, Tim Page wrote: "Mr. Sandor remains a distinctive pianist. His interpretations have energy, strength and clearly delineated character."

Among Sandor's numerous recordings, for Columbia, VOX, Philips, Turnabout, Sony Classical, and other labels, are performances with the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Vienna Symphony. His recordings of Bartok's piano music won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1965. He also recorded the complete solo piano works of Prokofiev and Kodaly.

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He was the author of On Piano Playing (Wadsworth, 1981), which was published in English, Italian, Chinese, and Polish. Insisting that a career needn't be ended by old age, Sandor practiced daily, even into his 90s, maintaining a repertoire of some 1,000 works. He had recently returned from Geneva, where he was judging a piano competition, and was teaching at home, up until the Monday prior to his death.

Mr. Sandor's marriage to Christina Sandor ended in divorce. He is survived by a son, Michael, of Manhattan, and two stepdaughters, Alejandra de Habsburgo de Riera of Barcelona, Spain, and Inmaculada de Habsburgo of Manhattan.