Rosalyn Tureck

{{Infobox musical artist

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| name = Rosalyn Tureck

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| image = Rosalyn_Tureck.jpg

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| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist

| birth_date = December 14, 1913

| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

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| death_date = July 17, 2003 (aged 89)

| death_place = New York, New York, U.S.

| genre = classical

| instrument = {{hlist|piano|harpsichord}}

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Rosalyn Tureck (December 14, 1913 – July 17, 2003) 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 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. She was one of the great pianists of the 20th Century and she is also known as the High Priestess of Bach.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/great-pianists-of-the-20th-century-rosalyn-tureck|title=Great Pianists of the 20th century - Rosalyn Tureck|website=Gramophone.co.uk|access-date=December 14, 2024}}{{Cite web|url=https://poindexters.com/high-priestess-bach-rosalyn-tureck/ |title=The High Priestess of Bach- the Story of Rosalyn Tureck |date=December 5, 2018 }}

Biography

Tureck was born in Chicago, Illinois, the third of three daughters of Russian Jewish immigrants Samuel Tureck (né Turk; Rosalyn’s father was of Turkish descent) and Monya (Lipson) Tureck. She was the granddaughter of a cantor from Kiev.{{cite web|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/tureck-rosalyn|title=Jewish Women's Archive|website=Jwa.org|access-date=February 27, 2018}} 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 to 1931{{cite web|url=http://tureckbach.com/biography|title=Tureck Bach Research Institute|website=Tureckbach.com|access-date=November 15, 2012}}{{cite web|url=http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/second-set-of-pianists.pdf|title=A Second Set of Pianists|website=Wrightmusic.net|access-date=November 15, 2012}} and also introduced her to the sounds of exotic instruments and ensembles such as the Javanese gamelan.{{cite web|url=http://www.poindexters.com/geniuses/rosalyn-tureck|title=Poindexters|publisher=Poindexters.com|access-date=November 15, 2012}}{{cite news|last=Kozinn|first=Allan|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/19/obituaries/19TURE.html?hp|title=Tureck profile|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 19, 2003|access-date=November 15, 2012}}

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.[https://books.google.com/books?id=sr98LzRQvUUC&dq=Rosalyn+Tureck+Saul+Bellow&pg=PT275 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].

"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.{{cite book |title=Rosalyn Tureck: A Portrait |date=1999 |publisher=Deutsche Grammaphon |location=Hamburg |pages=8–13 |edition=Liner notes for J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations |format=Compact Disc |url=https://www.discogs.com/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Rosalyn-Tureck-Goldberg-Variations/release/4099292}}

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. In 1940, Tureck joined the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music. Later in her career, she joined the faculty at Juilliard as a teacher.{{Cite web|title=About Rosalyn Tureck|url=https://www.curtis.edu/academics/library/tureck-bach-research-institute-at-curtis-institute-of-music/about-rosalyn-tureck/|access-date=2020-09-07|website=Curtis.edu}}

File:Gramophone Record (6498662893).jpg]]

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.Boston Herald Traveler, December 10, 1970, Harry Neville, "All-Bach recital by Miss Tureck" She was an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.

Author William F. Buckley, a friend of Tureck's, when writing in his magazine "National Review" often called her "J.S. Bach's representative on Earth".

In a CBC radio special on Glenn Gould,{{cite web|url=http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/gould/bio.html|title=Reference Influence On Glenn Gould|website=Sonyclassical.com|access-date=November 15, 2012}}{{cite web|url=http://www.connectedglobe.com/tbrf/tureck6.html|title=On Tureck's Influence On Gould|website=Connectedglobe.com|date=January 4, 1999|access-date=November 15, 2012}} 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.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

On March 18, 1986, she played during the state diner hosted by President Ronald Reagan.{{Cite web |title=State Visit Canada. Cuts of Entertainment by Rosalyn Tureck. State Dining Room {{!}} Ronald Reagan |url=https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/video/state-visit-canada-cuts-entertainment-rosalyn-tureck-state-dining-room |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=Reaganlibrary.gov |language=en}}

In 1990 she served on the jury of the Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition.[https://web.archive.org/web/20141014152124/http://www.concursodepianodesantander.com/C_Concursos_Premiados.aspx]

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.Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. {{ISBN|978 2 3505 5192 0}}.

Tureck was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in 1947.{{cite web|last1=Greenberg|first1=Robert|title=Music History Monday: Lotte Lehmann|url=https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/music-history-monday-lotte-lehmann/|website=Robertgreenbergmusic.com|access-date=7 February 2020|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207093617/https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/music-history-monday-lotte-lehmann/|archive-date=7 February 2020|language=en-US|date=26 August 2019}}

She died in New York City in 2003, aged 89. Her scores and recordings were given to the Music Division{{cite web|author=The New York Public Library|url=http://www.nypl.org/musicdiv|title=New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center|website=Nypl.org|access-date=November 15, 2012}} and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, both divisions of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.{{cite web|author=The New York Public Library|url=http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html|title=New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center|website=Nypl.org|date=July 21, 2012|access-date=November 15, 2012}}

References

External links

[https://www.curtis.edu/academics/library/tureck-bach-research-institute-at-curtis-institute-of-music/ Tureck Bach Research Institute]
[http://www.connectedglobe.com/tbrf/tureck6.html On Tureck and Gould]
{{YouTube|Z3TqT-PvM2c|Recording of Tureck Playing Bach}}
{{dead link|date=September 2017}}{{YouTube|WdvUB7MkbEM|More than 5 hours playing Bach Partitas, Goldberg Variations and more}}
{{YouTube|R1LKOKxLMX0|David Dubal interview with Rosalyn Tureck (1 of 2)}}, WNCN-FM, 6-Nov-1981
{{YouTube|JZ1YeOyrGEk|David Dubal interview with Rosalyn Tureck (2 of 2)}}, WNCN-FM, 13-Nov-1981
[https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/tureck-rosalyn Jewish Women's Archive]

Category:1913 births

Category:2003 deaths

Category:American harpsichordists

Category:Jewish classical pianists

Category:Musicians from Chicago

Category:Juilliard School alumni

Category:Juilliard School faculty

Category:Bach musicians

Category:Piano educators

Category:American women classical pianists

Category:American classical pianists

Category:20th-century American classical pianists