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.[3] 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[1][4] and also introduced her to the sounds of exotic instruments and ensembles such as the Javanese gamelan.[5][6]
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.[7]
"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.[8]
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.[9]
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,[11][12] 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]
On March 18, 1986, she played during the state diner hosted by president Reagan.
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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.[15]
She died in New York City in 2003, aged 89. Her scores and recordings were given to the Music Division[17] and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, both divisions of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[18]
^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].
^Rosalyn Tureck: A Portrait(Compact Disc) (Liner notes for J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations ed.). Hamburg: Deutsche Grammaphon. 1999. pp. 8–13.
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