Zoltán Hrabussay

JuDr. Zoltán Hrabussay was a pianist, music historian, publicist, specialist archival worker, organizer of musical life, and a member of the Beethoven and Chopin Societies in Czechoslovakia.

He studied at the grammar school in Ružomberok, law at Comenius University in Bratislava, and took piano lessons with Jozef Chládek, Frico Kafenda, Roman Veselý, and Štefan Németh-Šamorínsky. Later, he completed piano studies at the Prague Conservatory. He received his musicological education under Dobroslav Orel at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University and in Prague under Jaroslav Řídký.

Until 1955, he was an active concert artist in Bratislava as well as elsewhere. In the 1920s, he frequently performed in Dolný Kubín. He focused mainly on works by Beethoven, Hummel, Rubinstein, and on early Slovak piano music, but his repertoire also included piano concertos by Bach and Mozart and compositions by Chopin, Liszt, Bartók, and Albéniz. Hrabussay also recorded regularly for radio. His active contact with music naturally transformed into a theoretical interest.

After completing his studies, he worked as a trainee lawyer with Dr. Nádaši in Bratislava and at the Supreme Court. He was later employed at the Bratislava City Hall, and from 1952 he worked in the Bratislava City Archive, where he focused on processing and researching musical heritage materials.

As one of the first music scholars, Zoltán Hrabussay devoted his work to the musical history of Bratislava and its connections with significant figures of cultural life. He wrote, for example, scholarly studies such as Joseph Haydn and Bratislava (1959), Franz Liszt and Bratislava (1961), and Béla Bartók and Bratislava (1961). In his research, he also focused on the rich correspondence preserved in Batka’s estate.

Hrabussay was also the initiator of research on musical instrument making in Bratislava.

“However, ‘Bratislava’ topics began to be fully researched only from the 1960s onwards, and the first active scholars in this area were Zoltán Hrabussay, Marie Tarantová; later, Ľuba Ballová, Richard Rybarič, and further generations of music historians joined the research.” (Jana Kalinayová-Bartová, in Malé osobnosti veľkých dejín, veľké osobnosti malých dejín. Hudba v Bratislave. Príspevky k hudobnej regionalistike, 2021, p. 8)

As a music critic, he also contributed to several Slovak newspapers, including the magazines Hudobný život (Musical Life) and Slovenská hudba (Slovak Music), and he regularly took part in musicological symposia as a presenter.

“The qualities with which he contributed to its development [of musical life – editor’s note], especially to the diversification, enrichment, and completion of the picture of Bratislava’s musical life in earlier periods, guarantee him a lasting place among the knowledgeable and enthusiastic historians, publicists, and organizers of musical life.” (-zm-, in Hudobný život, 1976)