Rosa Tamarkina was a Soviet pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 who won second prize in the third International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 (1937).

Tamarkina, born in Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, began learning piano as a very young child. She was enrolled for the children’s section of the Kiev Conservatory

Kiev Conservatory

The Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music is a Ukrainian state institution of higher music education. Its courses include postgraduate education.-History:...

 where, for five years (1928–1932), her teacher was Nikolai Goldenberg.

Between 1932 and 1935 she was a student in the special children’s section at the Moscow Conservatory

Moscow Conservatory

The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...

. She completed the higher course at the Conservatoire in 1940, as a graduate of Alexander Goldenweiser

Alexander Goldenweiser

Alexander Goldenweiser may refer to:* Alexander Goldenweiser , American anthropologist* Alexander Goldenweiser , Russian composer, pianist and teacher...

’s piano class. She continued her studies with Goldenweiser and later (1943–1945) with Konstantin Igumnov

Konstantin Igumnov

Konstantin Nicolayevich Igumnov was a Russian virtuoso pianist and the teacher of many famous Russian pianists.Igumnov studied under Nikolai Zverev, and at Moscow Conservatory under Alexander Siloti and Pavel Pabst. He took theory and composition courses from Sergei Taneyev, Anton Arensky and...

.

Tamarkina started appearing in public at the age of 15, astounding listeners and critics with the maturity of her interpretation, temperament

Musical temperament

In musical tuning, a temperament is a system of tuning which slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation in order to meet other requirements of the system. Most instruments in modern Western music are tuned in the equal temperament system...

 and virtuosity. From 1936, she developed her concert career within Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Regardless of whether she would play Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

, Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

, Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

 or especially Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, her grasp of the work was apt, full of noble simplicity, charm and natural poetry.

Tamarkina took part in the Chopin Competition at the age of 17. Already after Stage 1 it was clear that she was in the running for a prize. Eventually the jury, composed of renowned pianists such as Emil von Sauer

Emil von Sauer

Emil Georg Conrad von Sauer was a notable German composer, pianist, score editor, and music teacher. He was a pupil of Franz Liszt and one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation...

, Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus was a German pianist and pedagogue.Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt...

, Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956...

, Józef Turczyński

Józef Turczynski

Jozéf Turczyński was a Polish pianist, pedagogue and musicologist who exercised a powerful influence over the development of piano teaching and performance, especially in the works of Frédéric Chopin, during the first half of the 20th century...

, Józef Śmidowicz and Jerzy Żurawlew

Jerzy Zurawlew

Jerzy Żurawlew was a Polish pianist, conductor, and professor at the Warsaw conservatory. He studied with Aleksander Michałowski, and was a favourite pupil. He was the founder of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, at Warsaw in 1927.- Source :*J...

, awarded her second prize.

Professor Piotr Rytel wrote: “Younger […] than Zak, Ms. Rosa Tamarkina […] when it comes to her inner relationship to music might even surpass Zak. […] Sixteen years and already such an excellent technique, complexity and ease.”

Neuhaus wrote: "Rosa Tamarkina made a real sensation on the competition -- not merely because of her age. Despite her young age, she is beyond doubt a perfectly matured, perfectly conscious pianist. Backhaus shouted to me: "This is marvelous" "

In 1946, Tamarkina started teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, which greatly limited the number of her concert appearances. In celebration of the centenary of Chopin's death in October 1949, a concert was held at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where Tamarkina performed Chopin's Concerto in F minor

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Chopin)

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, is a piano concerto composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1830. Chopin wrote the piece before he had finished his formal education, at around 20 years of age. It was first performed on 17 March 1830, in Warsaw, Poland, with the composer as soloist. It was...

.

This was to be her last stage appearance before her death, which occurred in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 in 1950, aged only 30.

Tamarkina is today remembered for her brilliant interpretations of Chopin’s works (Fantasie in F minor

Fantaisie in F minor (Chopin)

Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49, is a single-movement work for the piano, composed in 1841, when he was 31 years old.- Musical form :...

, Scherzos in B flat minor

Scherzo No. 2 (Chopin)

The Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 is a scherzo by Frédéric Chopin. The work was composed and published in 1837, and was dedicated to Countess Adèle Fürstenstein...

 and C sharp minor

Scherzo No. 3 (Chopin)

The Scherzo No. 3 by Frédéric Chopin begins in the key of C-sharp minor, then moves to D-flat major, and returns to C-sharp minor, concluding in C-sharp major. It was completed in 1839. The composition opens with an almost Lisztian introduction, leading to a subject in octaves of pent-up energy...

, Polonaise in F sharp minor, Sonata in B minor, Nocturne in G major and Concerto in F minor), Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

 (Sonata in B minor

Piano Sonata (Liszt)

The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...

, Mephisto Waltz

Mephisto Waltzes

The Mephisto Waltzes are four waltzes composed by Franz Liszt in 1859-62, 1880–81, 1883 and 1885. Nos. 1-2 were composed for orchestra, later arranged for piano, piano duet and two pianos, whereas 3 and 4 were written for piano only...

, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10

Hungarian Rhapsodies

Hungarian Rhapsody redirects here. For the 1979 Hungarian film Hungarian Rhapsody . For the 1928 German film Ungarische Rhapsodie.The Hungarian Rhapsodies, S.244, R106, is a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed by Franz Liszt during 1846-1853, and later in 1882 and 1885...

, Rigoletto Concert Paraphrase), Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 (Fantasie in C major

Fantasie in C (Schumann)

The Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, was written by Robert Schumann in 1836. It was revised prior to publication in 1839, when it was dedicated to Franz Liszt. It is generally described as one of Schumann's greatest works for solo piano, and is one of the central works of the early Romantic period. ...

) and Rachmaninoff (Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900...

). Her numerous recordings include Chopin’s Fantasie in F minor and Scherzo in C sharp minor.