At rare moments in history someone of genius comes along who electrifies the heavens with an explosion of light and color, only to be extinguished prematurely by the cruelty of fate. Rosa Tamarkina was such a genius.
Tamarkina studied at the Moscow Conservatory and eventually with Konstantin Igumnov. She began to concertize at the age of 15 and was invited to participate in the 3rd International Chopin Competition in 1937 at the age of 17.
Judges of the caliber of Emil von Sauer and Wilhelm Backhaus awarded her second prize. To put this achievement in perspective, the first prize winner that year was Yakov Zak, one of the great Russian pianists of the mid-century. 10 years earlier the 1st International Chopin Competition winner was Lev Oborin, another of the supreme Russian giants of the piano.
She had a wide ranging repertoire, from Bach to the moderns (at that time Scriabin and Rachmaninov). It was considered that she could play them all beautifully and with a maturity that belied her age. But she is most remembered, by those fortunate enough to have heard her, for her interpretations of Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.
One can only imagine what a treasure of recorded riches she would have left to the world had she lived another 30 or 40 years.
Rosa Tamarkina's performance of Sergei Taneyev's Piano Quintet
is the unique example of her playing of chamber music that I have been able to find, perhaps the only one that exists, but it is sufficient to demonstrate her mastery of that idiom as well.
Below are performances of piano music by Chopin, Schubert and Liszt, several Liszt transcriptions of Schubert Songs, and the Liszt Paraphrase on Verdi's Rigoletto.
Chopin Fantasie in F minor, Op.49
Part I
Part II
Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Major Op 61
Chopin Scherzo N°3 in c# minor Op 39 Recorded in 1947-48
Liszt Sonetto 104 del Petrarca from the Years of Pilgrimage Deuxième Année: Italie
Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10 in E Major Recorded in 1948
Schubert-Liszt "Der Müller und der Bach"
Schubert-Liszt "Erstarrung"
Schubert Impromptu in E flat Major Op 90 no.2 Recorded in 1946
Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Concert Paraphrase for Piano, S.434 Recorded in 1947
