Name Rosalyn Tureck Role Pianist | ||
![]() | ||
Movies The Art of Rosalyn Tureck, Rosalyn Tureck Plays Bach: Goldberg Variations Albums The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 Similar People Glenn Gould, Edwin Fischer, Johann Sebastian Bach, Angela Hewitt, Richard Egarr |
Rosalyn tureck plays bach capriccio bmv 992 on the departure of his beloved brother
Rosalyn Tureck (December 14, 1914 – 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 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.
Contents
- Rosalyn tureck plays bach capriccio bmv 992 on the departure of his beloved brother
- Rosalyn tureck plays j s bach prelude and fugue in a minor bwv 895
- Biography
- References

Rosalyn tureck plays j s bach prelude and fugue in a minor bwv 895
Biography

Rosalyn Tureck was born in Chicago, Illinois. 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 and also introduced her to the sounds of exotic instruments and ensembles such as the Javanese gamelan.
At Tuley High School (closed 1974), Tureck was friend and classmate of future Nobel Prize–winning novelist Saul Bellow, who graduated in January 1932. The two remained in contact for decades.

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.

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. She was an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.

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

During 2000 and 2001, Tureck lived in Spain teaching and practicing every day of the week, specifically in Estepona, Málaga, where she remained a whole year in retirement.
She died in New York City in 2003, aged 88. Her scores and recordings were given to the Music Division and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, both divisions of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.