Ronald Turini
Ronald Turini is a world renowned Canadian classical pianist.
Turini was the first Canadian artist to win prizes at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition and the Geneva International Music Competition, both in 1958, and the 1960 Queen Elisabeth Competition, where he was acclaimed by juror Emil Gilels. He was an acknowledged student of Vladimir Horowitz, and was known to be Horowitz' personally most highly regarded student.
Turini performed internationally with prominent orchestras such as the Leningrad Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, the London Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He appeared with the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris. Turini gave extended tours of many cities in Europe and the U.S. as soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C., the San Antonio Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Turini performed concertos with conductors such as Wilfrid Pelletier, Sir Adrian Boult, Charles Munch, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jean Martinon, Walter Susskind, Mario Bernardi, Igor Markevitch, Franz-Paul Decker, Antal Doráti, Leonard Slatkin, Arthur Fiedler, Maxim Shostakovich, Robert Shaw, and many others.
He performed recitals in concert halls such as Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall. Turini was a consistent performer and it was said that he almost never received a negative review from a music critic.
Turini later accepted a professorship at University of Western Ontario and recorded chamber music with his colleagues at Western.
Early life
Born in Montreal, Quebec, to an Italian-American father and a Danish-Canadian mother, Turini's father was an artist and his mother was a musician. His grandfather Giovanni Turini was a sculptor whose bust of Garibaldi, under whom he had served during the Italian war of unification, is a designated historical landmark in New York City's Washington Square.Turini studied piano with his mother at a very young age and with Frank Hanson at the McGill Conservatory. At age nine he began studies at the Montreal Conservatory of Music where he was taught by Yvonne Hubert, Germaine Malépart and Isidor Philipp. Hubert was known for developing strong technical skills, and her students, besides Turini, included André Laplante, Janina Fialkowska, Louis Lortie, and Marc-André Hamelin. Turini made his debut as a soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Wilfrid Pelletier at the age of ten during WWII. He graduated from the Conservatory at age 16 in 1950. For a couple of years he considered devoting himself to automobile engineering, but he finally decided on a career as a pianist. He retained a lifelong interest in high performance elite automobiles.
Turini entered the Mannes School of Music in 1953, where he studied with Isabelle Vengerova and Olga Stroumillo, who introduced him to Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz, who accepted few pupils, was sufficiently impressed to accept Turini as a student. He would later remark that Turini possessed the most brilliant two-handed runs of any pianist. Horowitz became a major influence on Turini, who studied with him from 1956 through 1965. Turini's lessons with Horowitz could extend to three hours in length, if Horowitz became interested in the results. The great pianist acknowledged only Byron Janis, Gary Graffman, and Turini as his eminent students, and Turini was known to be Horowitz' personally most highly regarded student. Horowitz would later comment that Turini was not "pushy" enough in promoting himself and his own performing career. Horowitz assisted in obtaining Turini's management contract with Columbia Artists Management.
Career
Competitions and debut
In 1958, Turini was awarded second prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, Italy. That same year, and along with Maurizio Pollini, he was unanimously awarded a second prize at the 1958 Geneva International Music Competition.Turini was awarded second place at the 1960 edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgium. He performed the Schumann Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor and the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 with the National Orchestra of Belgium conducted by Franz André. Following the Brussels competition, jury member Emil Gilels wired to Horowitz, "Congratulations, "Professor", your Turini is wonderful."
On 23 January 1961, Turini made his American debut recital at Carnegie Hall, playing sonatas by Schumann and Hindemith, etudes by Chopin and Scriabin, and pieces by Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Ravel and Scarlatti. The audience included notable musicians such as Artur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, Walter Toscanini, Rudolf Firkušný, and many pianists. Rubinstein was the first to congratulate Turini after the recital. The reception after the concert was hosted by Horowitz and his wife at their apartment. The next day, New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg characterized Turini as "resplendent", adding that "in addition to technical expertness, there was a quality of aristocracy to the performance." The positive critical reaction to his Carnegie Hall debut was consistent with Turini's subsequent career, and it was said that he almost never received a negative review from a music critic.
Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and European tours
That same year of 1961, Turini performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at Plateau Hall in Montreal under music director Zubin Mehta, receiving praise for his "placid sensitivity" as well as his "passion and power". In 1962, Turini participated in a major tour of Europe with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta and also with soprano soloist Teresa Stratas, who sang arias from Verdi and Puccini operas. He performed the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in Leningrad and Vienna and the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 in Moscow and Paris. Following the performances and a suddenly-arranged recital in Moscow, Soviet pianist Emil Gilels described Turini as "a great artist". The Vienna Kurier 7 May 1962 music review by Herbert Schneiber stated that in the Rachmaninoff work Turini's "manner of playing is full of charm, stylish shades and poetical atmosphere." His performance of the Liszt concerto in Paris was described in Le Figaro as "literally dazzling, of exceptional taste, finesse, and brilliance."Turini contracted to return to the Soviet Union the following season. In the 1962/1963 season he performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Leningrad Philharmonic, the foremost orchestra in the Soviet Union, the audience requesting further encores until Turini could no longer continue. He performed in Moscow as soloist with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and again in Leningrad in 1965, including a notable recital.
In 1966, he performed the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in Brussels, Belgium with Mehta and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and also toured throughout France and Switzerland with this work and the orchestra. He also performed in Montreal as soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in the seasons of 1953, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1969 performing the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 conducted by Charles Munch, in August 1972 performing both the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 as part of the same concert, 1974 in the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 and in Ottawa's National Arts Centre the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 with conductor Franz-Paul Decker. He toured with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1976 performing the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting, beginning in Carnegie Hall, N.Y. and then in France and Britain and Prague, Czechoslovakia. He also appeared as soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1979.
In 1963, Turini toured cities in both the U.S. and Canada including Detroit and New York City with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Susskind performing the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1968 he achieved an acclaimed performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Otto-Werner Mueller. Of this performance, one music writer stated that "..rapid passagework is dispatched with apparent ease, with masterful highlighting of key motifs and voices that are often overlooked by pianists who emphasize the virtuosic aspects of these passages. His left hand voicing is incredible." In 1972 he was again soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, the former music director of the orchestra.
In Britain, Turini was soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London conducted by Günther Wich in 1966 performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3. The next year he appeared with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal Albert Hall performing the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. In 1974, Turini gave a live recital broadcast on BBC Radio. In that same season, Turini was soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in two live concerts, one of which was broadcast on the full BBC television network. He also appeared in 1974 with both the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jean Martinon with the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Volker Wangenheim performing the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in three different locations. He was soloist with the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris.
Following his Carnegie Hall debut, Turini performed solo recitals both in North America and abroad, including 1965 recitals at Wigmore Hall in London, UK and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw hall. He returned to Carnegie Hall in 1964 and again in 1967. Of the 1967 Carnegie Hall recital, reviewer Howard Klein of the New York Times stated that in Turini's performance "...there is poetry and drive as well as literalness in his makeup, and the balance of classical severity with magical tone painting made this recital a thorough pleasure" and that "any pretext to get this epicurean young pianist to play again would be welcome". He made his Boston debut in 1969 for the Peabody Mason Concert series, returning in 1971. In 1965, Turini made a recital disc for CBC broadcast.
In 1967, Turini toured in Canada for the Canadian Centennial celebrations, including in his recital programs the Variations for piano of prominent Canadian composer Jacques Hétu. Turini performed at Expo 67 in Montreal at the Canadian pavilion in both a solo recital and as soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wilfred Pelletier. The symphony performance was broadcast internationally on the Ed Sullivan Show by the CBS television network, and was rebroadcast during the summer. Also on the orchestral program was soprano Birgit Nilsson singing "In Questa Reggia" from Puccini's Turandot. Variety review stated that "Filling the stage was the Montreal Symphony conducted by Wilfrid Pelletier and backing in succession, Met soprano Birgit Nilsson in a number from Puccini's Turandot and Canadian pianist Ronald Turini in a Rachmaninoff concerto for a splendid 1-2 longhair punch."
In 1969 he performed the Schumann Piano Concerto at the inaugural concert of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa with Mario Bernardi conducting in a national radio broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Turini performed the Ginastera Piano Sonata No. 1 in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast in 1969. Turini made three tours of Russia, three tours of South America, and two tours of Japan. In 1968 he performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic conducted by Igor Markevitch, former music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, with whom Turini had collaborated in Montreal.