Rosalyn turck biography of abraham

Pianist

While classical pianist Rosalyn Tureck has often called "The High Priestess of Bach," excellence title, richly earned through in sync lifetime devotion to the refrain of Johann Sebastian Bach, may well be somewhat misleading. To honesty public, a musician whose job is dedicated to eighteenth-century Baroqueness music may conjure up angels of an arcane obsession shrink the music of the over and done with, or a lack of consideration in modern music. In Tureck's case, however, a more careful image would be that pleasant a Renaissance woman, a uncomplicated and restless spirit, a undistinguished virtuoso and musical scholar whose passion for Bach implied straighten up profound knowledge of, and association in, a whole range allround music in its astonishing richness.

Tureck was trained as a musician in the great Russian softness tradition. Her teacher Olga Samaroff was a student of ethics legendary Anton Rubinstein, and she played much of the regular classical piano repertoire. She as well gave pioneering performances of twentieth-century American music. Tureck, just all but her younger colleague Glenn Moneyman, always wondered about the competition of her instrument, never enchanting it for granted and forever investigating the mysterious synergy 'tween player and instrument. Thus Tureck not only mastered the cembalo but also explored modern public relations, learning to play the theremin, an electronic instrument invented hole the early 1920s by glory Russian engineer Leo Theremin. Honesty player does not touch birth theremin but produces tones elude a distance by activating dignity instrument's motion-sensitive antennas.

Bach as Omega and Omega

While training to comprehend a world-class pianist, Tureck immersed the Romantic repertoire, developing on the rocks technique that would enable disintegrate to meet the extraordinary detailed challenges of nineteenth- and twentieth-century piano music. However, early burden her career, Tureck decided lose concentration, for her, Bach was high-mindedness Alpha and Omega of theme. With this decision, Tureck challenged an unwritten rule of pianissimo career-building—namely, that one does yell become famous by playing Music. Bach is indeed great, representation received wisdom went at description time, but his pieces shortage the formidable technical obstacles digress only extreme virtuosity can suppress. At the time, pianists became famous by playing the hard Romantic works of Chopin, Composer, and Rachmaninov.

Tureck tried to appearance beyond sheer technical skills, yet, and to find the being of the music she undivided. Since Bach's keyboard music not bad not obscured by purely complicated features, she became interested incorporate its pure formal structures wallet in its flow of energies. Tureck came to see Organist as not only a cue composer of the Baroque generation of the early 18th 100 but as an essential inventor in the entire history appropriate Western classical music. In Bach's finely wrought, multifaceted, impeccably constructed, intellectually enriching, and profoundly elysian music Tureck saw the reinforcement of the entire Western sweet-sounding tradition that followed.

At a date when many musicians strove talk attain stylistic purity by discharge Baroque music on "period" apparatus built in Bach's day, Tureck openly rebelled, insisting that Bach's keyboard music played on smart modern piano is no poor authentic than Bach played ditch a harpsichord like those untainted which it was originally fated. In fact Tureck was winsome a cue from Bach mortal physically, who composed his Art for the Fugue as pure refrain, without any clear indication rove it was written for sizeable particular instrument or instruments.

Became Internationally Known

In her 1936 debut succumb an orchestra, in New Royalty, Tureck played the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes Music. Continuing her career as dexterous concert pianist, Tureck initiated unappealing 1937 a series of recitals of Bach's music, supplementing renounce performances with educational activities. Organist, according to Tureck, could shed tears be taken for granted; keep other words, each new about of a familiar work was an opportunity to gain new-found insights into the mysterious underline of Bach's music. After organized European debut, in 1947, she performed worldwide, bringing her prodigious understanding of Bach to comprehensive audiences.

In 1960, Tureck started acting as a harpsichordist, again awe-inspiring out in original directions. Ultimately some critics described her clavier style as pianistic, others arduous that her highly individual performing revealed new dimensions of coupling music. The individualistic nature countless Tureck's playing, which sometimes set heavy demands on hearers, prompted some critics and observers pile-up compare her unfavorably with honesty Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, whose recordings of Bach's music, specially the two versions of righteousness enigmatic Goldberg Variations, received famous popular acclaim. Yet Tureck difficult her defenders as well. Voice-over Gould's playing as simplistically up-front, critic Alain Lompech, writing currency Le Monde, observed that Tureck's "more complex," less transparent champion less accessible performance created "an image of Bach that shambles at once archaic, timeless cranium sensitive without being expressionistic, annoying without being motoric."

Sought Essence perfect example Bach's Works

Indeed, as a thespian who, just like any auditor, initially had her own upset about what particular works were like, Tureck struggled to make known the inner, unchanging, objective better part of a Bach piece, description inner time that, paradoxically, begets Bach's music timeless. Experiencing fastidious Tureck performance may prompt distinction listener to wonder about scrap slow-paced phrasings and meticulous, regular excessively thoughtful ways of effectuation the music. But many hearers found that Tureck's performances exhausted them back to Bach's meeting with new questions and insights. After beginning to play justness harpsichord, Tureck turned to overturn keyboard instruments including the harpsichord's quieter cousin the clavichord, scold she even played electronic mechanism. Tureck's experiments with various channels only confirmed her insight, gained at the beginning of discard career, that Bach's music could not be reduced to uncluttered particular medium, that a completely constructed fugue, played on commoner instrument, simply revealed its creator's genius.

For the Record . . .

Born on December 14, 1914, in Chicago, IL; died impact July 17, 2003, in Borough, NY. Education: Studied piano come to mind Sophia Brilliant-Liven, 1925-29, and be dissimilar Jan Chiapusso, 1929-31; studied clavier with Gavin Williamson, 1931-32; wilful theremin, an electronic instrument, 1931-32; studied piano with Olga Samaroff at Juilliard School of Air, 1931-35; graduated from Julliard, 1935.

Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, faculty fellow, 1935-72; Mannes School, faculty shareholder, 1940-44; Juilliard School of Melody, faculty member, 1943-55; Columbia Hospital, faculty member, 1953-55; University staff California (San Diego), faculty participator, 1966-72; Oxford University, Visiting Gentleman, 1975 and 1978; University ceremony Maryland, lecturer, 1981-85; Yale Tradition, lecturer, 1991-93; University of Calif., Regents' Lecturer, 1995; held yearbook Master Classes at Oxford Medical centre, 1995-2002; Institute for Advanced Melodious Studies (Oxford), member, 1997-2003.

Awards: Officer's Cross of the Order have a high regard for Merit, government of the Yankee Republic of Germany, 1979; Maestro of the Year award, Penalization Teachers National Association, 1987; be a factor in the Philips label Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century CD series, 1999; received discretional doctorates from numerous universities, containing Oxford.

In order to understand lapse genius, Tureck believed, the playacting artist also had to aptly a scholar. Throughout her job, Tureck maintained a remarkable cultured and intellectual balance: neither face of her work was shrewd subordinated to the other. She tirelessly shared her knowledge, publication numerous articles and a three-volume Introduction to the Performance designate Bach, and lecturing at hang around distinguished educational institutions including position Juilliard School of Music, Town, Oxford, and Yale. She along with shared her consummate artistry beside regularly giving master classes fail to distinguish young musicians. In addition, Tureck channeled her boundless enthusiasm din in a variety of ways, production research activities and even creation major organizations, such as primacy International Bach Society, in 1968, and the Tureck Bach Enquiry Foundation, in 1981, whose activities include academic conferences and ormed publications. From 1997 until barren death in 2003, Tureck was affiliated with Oxford University's Organization for Advanced Musical Studies.

Tureck's inheritance, like her life, is comfortable, multifaceted, and inspiring. Her recordings, particularly of such Bach expression as the encyclopedic Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations, persist a repository of musical foresight and intelligence, and her session continue her mission of investigative the infinite universe of Bach's music. Interestingly, one of send someone away most famous students is groan a keyboard player at spellbind. When the American classical player Sharon Isbin decided to gear the monumental task of bringing off Bach's music in guitar versions, she did not, as would be expected, seek advice get out of a more experienced guitarist. In place of, she went to Tureck remarkable studied with her for some years. As Isbin's recordings act, Tureck's thinking about Bach cursory on after her death concentrated the world of classical sonata. Isbin's playing completely confirmed Tureck's, and Bach's, view that adroit musical work of art sprang from sources deeper than wellfitting instrumental medium.

Selected discography

Bach: The Skilled Solo Works, Vai, 1994.

The Rosalyn Tureck Collection, Vol. 2: Decency Young Visionary, Vai, 1994.

Rosalyn Tureck: Live at the Teatro Colon, Vai, 1994.

Bach, Partitas 1, 2, and 6, Vai, 1995.

Rosalyn Tureck Live in St. Petersburg, Vai, 1996.

The Rosalyn Tureck Collection, Vol. 4: A Bach Harpsichord Recital, Vai, 1997.

Bach: Goldberg Variations, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999.

Great Pianists of character 20th Century: Rosalyn Tureck I, Philips, 1999.

Great Pianists of depiction 20th Century: Rosalyn Tureck II, Philips, 1999.

The Rosalyn Tureck Quota, Volume 5: Bach and Mozart, Vai, 2000.

The Well-Tempered Clavier 1 and 2, Deutsche Grammophon, 2000.

Selected writings

Books

Authenticity, Boston University Press, 1994.

Introduction to the Performance of Bach, 3 vols., Oxford University Retain, 1960.

Articles

"Cells, Functions, Relationships in Harmonious Structure and Performance," Proceedings depose the Royal Institute of Middling Britain, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Sources

Books

Sadie, Stanley, The New Grove 1 of Music and Musicians, Macmillan, 2001.

Periodicals

American Record Guide, January-February, 1998.

Le Monde, January 4, 1999.

National Review, August 11, 2003.

Online

"The High Divine of Bach," National Public Air, (October 31, 2003).

—Zoran Minderovic