Bartók String Quartet first violinist Péter Komlós has died, aged 81

Bartók String Quartet founding violinist Péter Komlós has died at the age of 81.

Born in Budapest in October 1935, Komlós studied at the  Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music from 1950 to 1956 with Bihariné Kádár Klára, Ede Zathureczky, Leó Weiner and Béla Katona.

He founded the Komlós String Quartet in 1957 with fellow musicians Sándor Devich, Géza Németh and László MezŠ‘. The ensemble was renamed as the Bartók String Quartet in 1963.

In addition to his chamber music commitments, Komlós served as concertmaster of the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra between 1960 and 1989 and became a professor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1982.

He was awarded the Liszt Ferenc Prize in 1964 and the Kossuth Prize in 1970. In 1997 he and his fellow Bartók String Quartet members won a further Kossuth Prize.

He performed on a 1731 Stradivari violin, on loan from the Hungarian government.