Ernest Oláh was born on 19 July 1942 in Lucenec. His father played the cimbalom in a popular folk group; his mother was a singer. He had two older sisters Dóri and Frida who were also enthusiastic musicians but their father blocked them from pursuing a musical career. For a long time the family had no fixed home because their father moved between various engagements in the Czech lands and Slovakia. Only after Ernest was born the family decided to settle permanently in Lucenec. For as long as they could remember, music had been the source of income and a way of life for the whole Oláh family.
Childhood, classical training, first encounter with Oscar Peterson
Ernest began learning music at the age of four, first on the violin and later on the cimbalom; due to his weak health, however, his father directed him towards the piano. At that time jazz was almost unknown, except when it burst out like an explosion from time to time on the radio. The only formal music training Ernest received was two years at the Elementary Arts School in Fiľakovo, in the class of the Austrian classical music instructor, Julius Schiller. Everything else, it seems, came from young Ernest himself thanks to a ready combination of great talent, ambition, perseverance and his father’s firm, guiding hand. And so the young Ernest used every opportunity to practice and play on his old Jozef Cisár concert grand piano. More than once he recalled it as being a very bad piano, but even so the best school that he could get. So it went until he tuned in to a radio programme playing a record by the Canadian icon Oscar Peterson. For a thirteen-year-old adolescent who had so far only known the great names of classical music – Bach, Mozart, Brahms and Stravinsky – this must have been an earth-shaking moment, especially for everything he knew, believed and felt about music. The Canadian monarch of the black and white keys struck an instant chord that nearly wiped out all Ernest’s ambitions.
Many years later, when Ernest had become an experienced and widely recognised musician himself, he used to say with great respect: “Even if I can faithfully imitate Oscar’s playing, no one can master his technique, not even me”. He remained an admirer of Oscar Peterson throughout his life. Whenever he listened to this most famous of pianists for inspiration, he was sure to find a theme he could use in his own music.
Career at the start of the 1960s
Ernest first performed professionally with his father’s group at the age of fourteen, coming into contact with the world of jazz through his uncle’s saxophone. He played for a real audience with a group of young people and seized every opportunity to gain new experience.
At the start of the 1960s he made his first appearances with the Brno guitarist, Ladislav Hajchl. The two greatest protagonists of modern dance music in former Czechoslovakia, Gustáv Brom and Gustáv Offermann spoke of him as a great talent and held him up as an example. In 1964 he performed a series of concerts with Velcovsky’s orchestra in Kühlungsborn in East Germany. These regular evening shows gave Ernest an opportunity to play to his full potential. One evening he was playing the tune Konzert für dich and noticed a young woman in the front row with tears in her eyes. This was Heidi, who he married a short time later. He often used to joke that he had to get married so he could learn German. He stayed with Juraj Velcovsky’s orchestra for nearly twenty years. During this time he cooperated with artists such as Olga Szabova, Sally Selingova, Jana Kocianova, Dusan Grun, Janko Lehotsky, Peter Vasek and Gabo Jonas.
Start of his solo career in the 1980s
Ernest set out on his own at the start of the 1980s. Relying on his own name and his highly polished piano technique, he performed as a bar pianist in a number of European towns. One evening in the Swiss spa town of Interlaken, he was approached after his performance by a guest who made him an offer almost impossible to refuse – a plane ticket to America and a case full of money for the song that he had just written. Ernest turned it down, and did not reconsider even when he found out that the offer came from Barbara Streisand’s manager and producer.
Ernest never had a business instinct and never hungered for fame or fortune. He felt rich enough in the moment when he could put his fingers on the keys and start playing spontaneously here and now, even if it was for an audience of one. He demonstrated his perfect sense of pitch during a stay in hospital to be treated for tuberculosis of the lungs and kidneys when he wrote the piece Strieborný tien (Silhouette), a concerto for classical piano and orchestra. With pencil and paper in hand he took inspiration from the sound of the machine connected to the patient with whom he shared a room. In 1983 he made a number of sparkling solo recordings in the studio in Bratislava. These bear witness to his virtuosity and mature musical style, full of energy and intense musical feeling. One of these recordings is the suite As We Were Together, which he gives to close friends and agents as a demo but which never saw an official release until its inclusion as a bonus track on the posthumous album Oscar on my Mind in 2003.
From 1986 he took up nearly twelve-year residence as a bar pianist in the prestigious Hotel Bristol next to the world famous Vienna Opera House. He was one of the few Slovaks to develop and refine his virtuoso technique before guests at the Opera Ball and in the hotel bar, where he was able to shake hands with local and foreign celebrities from the worlds of culture, business and politics.
Last journey
From 1998 Ernest Oláh was increasingly hampered by health problems that he could never quite get over. A series of concerts in Brno, Piestany and Bratislava was planned to continue in Berlin and other European cities. The idea of a final journey to the land of his beloved music at the end of a long musical career was cancelled forever by news of his sudden death in 2002. Ernest died at home in his sleep on Christmas Eve. Rest in peace!