Rosalyn Tureck, R.I.P.

SHE died (finally) on July 17. As it happened, only a few minutes after a Tureck tribute at the Mannes School in New York at which the audience—more accurately, the congregants—heard her playing on video and tapes, listened to a lecture or two about her accomplishments, and on to two young pianists who tried to communicate her authoritative style. They played, of course, J. S. Bach. She and Bach devoted their lives to each other.

I approached her in the late Sixties, inviting her to appear on Firing Line to discuss a recent jab at Bach by a young protester in Los Angeles who had raged at a public rally that Bach had nothing to say to modern life. I knew her, as everyone who listened to Bach did, as the greatest living interpreter of his works. She had played the whole piano repertory, old and new—David Diamond wrote a piano sonata for her. Her first public performance in Chicago was done at age nine, and after intensive studies with fine artists in Chicago and at the Juilliard School, she began her exhaustive career, giving, gradually, only all-Bach programs. She played in every part of the world, earning, always, standing ovations, and taught music and musicology at Oxford, Yale, and Cal Tech.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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SHE died (finally) on July 17. As it happened, only a few minutes after a Tureck tribute at the Mannes School in New York at which the audience—more accurately, the congregants—heard her playing on video and tapes, listened to a lecture or two about her accomplishments, and on to two young pianists who tried to communicate her authoritative style. They played, of course, J. S. Bach. She and Bach devoted their lives to each other.

I approached her in the late Sixties, inviting her to appear on Firing Line to discuss a recent jab at Bach by a young protester in Los Angeles who had raged at a public rally that Bach had nothing to say to modern life. I knew her, as everyone who listened to Bach did, as the greatest living interpreter of his works. She had played the whole piano repertory, old and new—David Diamond wrote a piano sonata for her. Her first public performance in Chicago was done at age nine, and after intensive studies with fine artists in Chicago and at the Juilliard School, she began her exhaustive career, giving, gradually, only all-Bach programs. She played in every part of the world, earning, always, standing ovations, and taught music and musicology at Oxford, Yale, and Cal Tech.