Rosalyn Tureck

Rosalyn Tureck (December 14, 1913 – July 17, 2003)[1] was an American pianist and harpsichordist who was particularly associated with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. However, she had a wide-ranging repertoire that included works by composers including Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and Frédéric Chopin, as well as more modern composers such as David Diamond, Luigi Dallapiccola and William Schuman. Diamond's Piano Sonata No. 1 was inspired by Tureck's playing.

Rosalyn Tureck
Background information
BornDecember 14, 1913
Chicago, Illinois
DiedJuly 17, 2003 (aged 89)
New York, New York
Genresclassical
Instruments

Biography

Rosalyn Tureck was born in Chicago, Illinois, the third of three daughters of Russian Jewish immigrants Samuel and Monya (Lipson) Tureck (né Turk—Rosalyn’s father was of Turkish descent). She was the granddaughter of a cantor from Kiev.[2] The first of her teachers to recognize her special gifts for playing the music of Bach was the Javanese-born Dutch pianist Jan Chiapusso, who gave her twice-weekly lessons in Chicago from 1929-31[1][3] and also introduced her to the sounds of exotic instruments and ensembles such as the Javanese gamelan.[4][5]

At Tuley High School (closed 1974), Tureck was a friend and classmate of future Nobel Prize–winning novelist Saul Bellow, who graduated in January 1932. The two remained in contact for decades.[6]

"My technique was grounded, from my earliest years of study, in the school of Mendelssohn as passed on by Anton Rubinstein and many of his pupils, one of whom, Sophia Brilliant-Liven, was my teacher. It's essentially a finger technique, not a chordal one." Tureck reports that Brilliant-Liven was a stern teacher. "During the years I was with her, from the ages of 9 to 13, she never praised my playing." However, she made up for this, Tureck said, with a single compliment given to 13-year old Tureck after her performance in the semi-finals of a piano competition in which 80,000 young pianists participated. Brilliant-Liven told young Tureck, "If I had been listening from outside the auditorium, I would have sworn it was Anton Rubinstein himself playing." Tureck went on to the finals, and to win first prize in the competition.[7]

She continued her musical studies in Chicago with pianist and harpsichordist Gavin Williamson. She later studied at the Juilliard School in New York City, where one of her teachers was Leon Theremin. She made her debut at Carnegie Hall playing the electronic instrument invented by Theremin, the eponymously named theremin. Later in her career, she joined the faculty at Juilliard as a teacher.[8]

Tureck recording of Bach, Parlophone Records

For a while she followed Wanda Landowska in playing Bach's keyboard music on a harpsichord but later returned to playing the piano. In 1970, Tureck performed in Boston for the Peabody Mason Concert series.[9] She was an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.

In a CBC radio special on Glenn Gould,[10][11] the host told Tureck that Gould cited her as his "only" influence. She responded by stating that she was an influence and that it was very kind of him to say so.

In 1990 she served on the jury of the Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition.[12]

During 2000 and 2001, Tureck lived in Spain teaching and practicing every day of the week, specifically in Estepona, Málaga, where she remained for a year in retirement [13]

Tureck was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in 1947.[14]

She died in New York City in 2003, aged 89. Her scores and recordings were given to the Music Division[15] and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, both divisions of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[16]

Notes
  1. "Tureck Bach Research Institute". Tureckbach.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  2. "Jewish Women's Archive". jwa.org. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
  3. "A Second Set of Pianists" (PDF). Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  4. "poindexters.com". poindexters.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  5. Kozinn, Allan (July 19, 2003). "Tureck profile". Nytimes.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  6. Saul Bellow: Letters, New York: Viking Adult, 2010. BELLOW to TURECK, Chicago, September 21, 1967: Dear Rosalyn, Wonderful of you to write. Yours was just the sort of letter I needed at a trying moment. As an admirer of your music, I don't like to miss your concert. The odd fact is, however, that I have at last decided to visit Africa, and I have accepted an assignment from HOLIDAY to go and hover over the sources of the Nile in a helicopter and to write impressions or effusions. I leave just before Thanksgiving and return after Christmas, which lets me out of a couple of trying holidays, but makes it impossible for me to hear you, alas. We shall keep in touch, I hope, and see a good deal of each other yet. Best wishes, [Saul].
  7. Rosalyn Tureck: A Portrait (Compact Disc) (Liner notes for J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations ed.). Hamburg: Deutsche Grammaphon. 1999. pp. 8–13.
  8. "About Rosalyn Tureck". www.curtis.edu. Retrieved September 7, 2020.
  9. Boston Herald Traveler, December 10, 1970, Harry Neville, "All-Bach recital by Miss Tureck"
  10. "Reference Influence On Glenn Gould". Sonyclassical.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  11. "On Tureck's Influence On Gould". Connectedglobe.com. January 4, 1999. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  12. Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition “Winners, members of the jury and artistic guests”
  13. Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0.
  14. Greenberg, Robert (August 26, 2019). "Music History Monday: Lotte Lehmann". robertgreenbergmusic.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  15. The New York Public Library. "New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center". Nypl.org. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  16. The New York Public Library (July 21, 2012). "New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center". Nypl.org. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
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