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‘Let it happen’: Kató Havas’s teaching philosophies

2026-08-14T09:07:00

Kato Havas

Kató Havas’s teaching remains widely admired but is still often misunderstood. Clifford Hall revisits the debates around her methods to reveal a more nuanced picture of her legacy

The Hungarian violinist Kató Havas was 18 years old when she made her US debut at Carnegie Hall on 10 October 1939. Reviewing the performance for the New York Times, a critic identified only as ‘G.G.’ spent the column calling her ‘Miss Kato’ – her first name, not her surname (in Hungarian, family names come first). They also got her age wrong by a year. Then, having warmed up, G.G. concluded that she had played with ‘more zest than understanding’. This would not be the last time; Havas spent a lifetime being misunderstood…

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