Szigeti quickly showed a talent for the violin. Several years later, his father took him to Budapest to receive proper training at the conservatory. After a brief stint with a kindly but inadequate teacher, he auditioned at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and was admitted directly into the class of Jeno Hubay, without the usual delays and formalities.[4]

Hubay, who had himself been a student of Joseph Joachim in Berlin, had by that time established himself as one of the preeminent teachers in Europe and a fountainhead of the Hungarian violin tradition.[5] Szigeti joined such violinists as Franz von Vecsey, Emil Telmanyi, Jelly d'Arányi and Stefi Geyer in Hubay’s studio.

In 1905, at the age of thirteen, Szigeti made his Berlin debut playing Bach's Chaconne in D minor, Ernst's Concerto in F-sharp minor, and Paganini's Witches Dance. Despite the formidable program, the event received mention only via a photograph in the Sunday supplement of the Berliner Tageblatt captioned: "A Musical Prodigy: Josef Szigeti".[6]

Following that rather anti-climactic debut, Szigeti spent the next few months with a summer theater company in a small Hungarian resort town, playing mini-recitals in between acts of folk operetta. In that same vein, the next year saw an engagement to play at a circus in Frankfurt, where he appeared under the pseudonym "Jóska Szulagi".[7] Also in 1906, Hubay took Szigeti to play for Joseph Joachim in Berlin. Joachim was impressed, and suggested that Szigeti should finish his studies with him. Szigeti declined the offer, both out of loyalty to Hubay and a perceived aloofness and lack of rapport between Joachim and his students.[8]

Throughout England, he gave many successful concerts, including the premiere of the first work dedicated to him: Hamilton Harty's Violin Concerto. Also during this time, Szigeti toured with an all-star ensemble including legendary singer Dame Nellie Melba and pianists Ferruccio Busoni and Wilhelm Backhaus. Philippe Gaubert, a famous French flutist of the day, as well as the young John McCormack, were also present on these tours.[10]

The most significant of these new contacts was Busoni. The great pianist and composer became Szigeti’s mentor during these formative years, and the two would remain lifelong friends. By Szigeti’s own admission, before meeting Busoni his life was characterized by a certain laziness and indifference brought on by the then-typical life of a young prodigy violinist.[11] He had grown accustomed to playing crowd-pleasing salon miniatures and dazzling virtuosic encores without much thought. He knew little of the works of the great masters; he could play them, but not fully understand them. As Szigeti put it, Busoni—particularly through their careful study of Bach's Chaconne—"shook me once and for all out of my adolescent complacency".[12]

American debut
In 1925, Szigeti met Leopold Stokowski and played the Bach Chaconne in D minor for him. Less than two weeks later, Szigeti received a telegram from Stokowski’s manager in Philadelphia inviting him to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra later that year: it was to be his American debut.[15] The trip to America was a new experience on many levels: not only had Szigeti never played with an American orchestra before, he had never even heard one—a situation which caused him some significant stage fright. In addition, he was thoroughly taken aback by the American concert scene, specifically by the publicity- and popularity-driven agents and managers who determined much of what was heard in American concert halls. To Szigeti’s dismay, most of these impresarios were not interested in concertos and sonatas by the great masters, but preferred the popular light salon pieces which Szigeti had left behind in his prodigy days.[16] (To the end of his days, Szigeti loved to quote one memorable, cigar-chewing impresario who told him, with regard to Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" , “Well, let me tell you, Mister Dzigedy—and I know what I’m talking about—your Krewtzer Sonata bores the pants off my audiences!")[17]

[edit] Maturity
By 1930, Szigeti was established as a major international concert violinist. He performed extensively in Europe, the United States and Asia, and made the acquaintance of many of the era’s leading instrumentalists, conductors and composers.