Robert Virovai is a Hungarian concert violinist born (in Duravar, Yugoslavia) on March 10, 1921. Except for this blog profile, he is today almost totally forgotten. He began his violin studies with his mother at age 6. By age 8, he was studying at the Belgrade Conservatory with Peter Stojanovich, a Serbian violinist, teacher, and composer. He spent four years there. He then studied, from the age of 13, with Jeno Hubay at the Budapest Conservatory. Hubay later said of him, “Virovai plays so beautifully as to astonish even me.” Some sources say Hubay declared him his best pupil. He lived in New York City for a while but later spent most of his career in Europe. He made his U.S. debut (playing a rented Stradivarius) on November 3, 1938, at age 17, with the New York Philharmonic. He played Vieuxtemps’ Fourth Concerto in d minor (Opus 31) and all critics agreed he was sensational, one of them declaring that “his attack was positively ferocious.” He later played a solo recital at Carnegie Hall on December 17 of the same year. Virovai was soon placed among the front ranks of violinists. It was said that his playing was “remarkable for speed, accuracy, and beautiful tone.” He toured the U.S. for two or three years after that, playing with the most important orchestras. Then he dropped out of sight, spending most of his time in Europe. As far as I know, he has never commercially recorded anything, though that would be extremely unusual since recording technology had a progressive surge in the 1950s when Virovai would have been in his thirties. Most violinists reach their apogee between thirty and fifty years of age. Why there is no record of a discography is a mystery. Perhaps I just don’t know where to look. Later on, Virovai played and taught in Switzerland, where he now lives. As a youth, Virovai was fluent in four languages – German, Hungarian, Croatian, and Slovenian. Perhaps today, he is fluent in a few more.
