IDIL BIRET AT 80
Milestones in her career
(The more important events in bold print)
1946 At the age of five she plays for the President of the Turkish Republic Ismet Inönü and then performs Bach’s D Minor keyboard concerto with a quartet at the Ankara radio
1948 The Turkish National Assembly passes a law to provide for her education abroad (at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger)
1953 Performs Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Wilhelm Kempff with Orchestre des Concerts des Conservatorie conducted by Joseph Keilberth at the Theatre Champs Elysees in Paris
1955 She is introduced to Arthur Rubinstein by Nadia Boulanger and plays for him. Rubinstein invites her to appear with him on the TV program “Joie de vivre” in Paris and, before she plays, tells the audience “When I heard Idil Biret, I had tears in my eyes”
1957 She is introduced to Emil Gilels by Nadia Boulanger and plays the Schumann Fantasie op. 17. Gilels asks her if she would like to perform in the Soviet Union
1958 After graduating from the Paris Conservatoire she goes to the home of Wilhelm Kempff in Germany for a week of study with him. She continues studying with him over the years
1959 Learns and plays Stravinsky’s Capriccio with one week’s notice in Brussels with the Orchestre National Belgique conducted by Hermann Scherchen. Queen Elisabeth of Belgium attends the concert and meets her afterwards
1960 Upon the invitation of Emil Gilels she makes her first tour of the Soviet Union. The eight concert tour is increased to sixteen after her recital at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. Over the years she gives more than one hundred concerts in the USSR
1960-62 She has monthly individual lessons with Alfred Cortot
1960 onwards gives many concerts in the UK with orchestras conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Pritchard, Sir Charles Groves
1961 Signs her first recording contract with Vega in Paris. LPs with the music of Bartok, Prokofiev, Brahms and Beethoven are produced
1962 Plays Bartok’s 2nd Piano Concerto with the Orchestre des Concerts des Conservatorie in Paris
1963 Plays Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Monteux at the Royal Festival Hall. She plays the same concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf in Boston on 22 November. President Kennedy’s assassination is announced to the audience just before the intermission
Plays the Mozart Concerto K. 482 and Hindemith’s concerto for wind instruments, two harps and piano with the Manchester Halle Orchestra conducted by Nadia Boulanger
1964 Plays Prokofiev’s 3rd Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvenski
1966 Plays Tippet’s Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir John Pritchard; Bach’s keyboard concerto in D minor with Israel Chamber Orchestra; Brahms 1st Concerto with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra
1967 Plays Boulez’ 2nd Sonata at the Royan Festival in France with the composer in attendance. She plays works by Bocourechliev and other modern composers at the same festival
1971 Performs the Mozart Concerto K.415 with the Halle Orchestra conducted by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. She is made a State Artist of Turkey for representing the country abroad with acclaimed concerts worldwide
1972 Tours Austria and Switzerland with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Kempe playing the Schumann Concerto. Records for Decca (France) Rachmaninov’s Corelli Variations and 6 Moments Musicaux. Starts recording for Atlantic Records Finnadar Label in the US. First LP with Boulez’ 2nd Sonata and Webern Variations receives great critical acclaim
1973 With Yehudi Menuhin she plays Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 5, 7 and 9 at the Istanbul Festival. Performs Mozart’s Concerto K. 595 with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra conducted by Aaron Copland in Ankara
1975 Recital in New York at the Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Centre. Program includes the rarely played, fiendishly difficult Strauss/Godowsky “Künstlerleben” . Gives a recital at the UN Assembly Hall in NY at the Human Rights Declaration anniversary (10 December). The French government gives her the high decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite
1978 Recital at the Markbreit Festival in Germany. At the end she plays works suggested by the audience as encores (Biret later does the same at a recital at Radio France in Paris). She is a jury member of the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in Belgium with Emil Gilels, Leon Fleisher and others
1979 Tours South Africa with concerts in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Swaziland (accepts the engagement after being advised that coloured people are admitted to concerts). She performs at the East Berlin Festival which leads to a career in East Germany with many tours during the 1980s
1980 First Australian Tour for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). Performs thirty concerts, seven of which at the Opera House with Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Louis Fremaux (Brahms 1st, Mozart K. 466). Other concertos played during the tour are: Rachmaninov 4th (Melbourne), Stravinsky Capriccio (Sydney), Beethoven 4th (Brisbane, Perth)
1980-82 Plays all 32 Sonatas of Beethoven in seven concerts at the Atatürk Cultural Centre (Opera house hall) in Istanbul
1982 Plays Boulez’ 2nd Sonata at concerts in London, New York, Los Angeles…Tours East Germany; concerts with Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig Gewandhaus (Bartok 2nd) etc., Concerts in India, Plays Rachmaninov’s 3rd Concerto with the Prague Symphony in Prague
1984 Second Australian tour for ABC. Thirty concerts with seven at the Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras (Bartok 2nd, Liszt 1); Ten concert tour of New Zealand with Sir Charles Groves conducting. Concerts with the New Zealand Symphony in Auckland, Christchurch and other cities performing Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody
Opening concert of the season in Leningrad with the orchestra conducted by Alexander Dimitreev performing Saint-Saens 2nd Concerto
1985 She is a jury member of the Van Cliburn Competition in the USA. Tours East Germany with concerts in Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig. She plays Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody with the Berlin Radio Symphpny and with Dresdner Staatskapelle. In Leipzig she gives a recital at the newly reopened Semper Oper hall
1985/86 Records all the nine Beethoven Symphonies piano transcriptions by Liszt on twelve days (July, Sept., March, April).
1986 Performs all the nine Beethoven/Liszt symphonies from memory in four recitals in one week at the Montpellier Festival in France. Concerts broadcast by Radio France Musique. She becomes the first pianist ever to have recorded and performed in concert all these symphony transcriptions
EMI/HMV releases the complete Beethoven/Liszt Symphonies in a box set of 6 LPs worldwide
1987 Plays Brahms 1st Concerto with the Calgary Symphony Orchestra in Canada conducted by Andrew Litton
1988 Performs Saint-Saens 2nd Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by James Loughran at the Barbican Hall in London. Records Saint-Saens 2nd and 4th Concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by James Loughran. This is her first studio recording with an orchestra. During the next thirty years she will make studio recordings of forty piano concertos (including all the works for piano and orchestra of Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Franck, Hindemith, Liszt, Schumann, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky)
Simone Weil and Alfred Brendel attend Biret’s recital in Brussels where she performs the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (with the hymn Ode to Joy) at a European Union occasion. After the performance, Brendel tells her husband that all her colleagues fear her because she can perform with ease everything and play so well. This has consequences (See the years 1999, 2001, 2006))
1989 Upon the suggestion of Alfred Brendel, she plays Schönberg’s Concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis. Plays Beethoven/Liszt “Eroica” Symphony at the Barbican Hall in London. Klaus Heymann, founder of Naxos label, contacts her and proposes her to record the complete piano works of Chopin. Idil accepts
1990 Plays the piano part in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle at Theatre Champs Elysees in Paris at the concert in memory of Maurice Fleuret the French composer, radio producer, arts administrator and festival organizer. Plays Beethoven’s 5th Concerto in Tokyo with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
1990/92 Records Chopin’s complete solo piano works and all the works for piano and orchestra on 15 CDs which Naxos releases and distributes worldwide to great critical acclaim
1990/98 Records all the piano solo works and the concertos of Rachmaninov and Brahms. They are released on 22 CDs by Naxos
1991 Performs in memoriam Wilhelm Kempff at the Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam upon request of his family
1995 Records the three piano sonatas of Pierre Boulez for Naxos which sells 30.000 copies in six months. She receives a Diapason d’Or of the year in France for this CD. The Complete Chopin Edition receives a Grand Prix du Disque Frederic Chopin prize in Warsaw
1997 For the Brahms Centennial she plays both concertos of Brahms in one concert repeating this the day after with the Istanbul State Symphony. She plays and records her own transcriptions of Brahms’ 3rd and 4th Symphonies at Radio France in Paris and other venues. She performs all the solo piano works of Brahms in five recitals in Germany and becomes the first pianist ever to do this. She plays Prokofiev’s 3rd Piano Conc erto with they Orchestre National de France in Paris
Gives a recital at the Chopin Festival in Nohant at the country house of George Sand. Performs the first ever solo piano recital at the two thousand year old Roman theatre at Aspendos, Turkey.
1998 On the occasion of a UN human rights conference, gives a recital in Yalta at the Livadia Palace in the hall where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in 1945. Before the recital she reads a section from the UN Human Rights Declaration of 1948. Performs all the five piano concertos of Beethoven with the Bilkent Symphony thus becoming the first pianist to have played all the piano concertos, sonatas and the symphony transcriptions of Beethoven in concert. Plays Bach’s D Minor Concerto at the 50th anniversary concert in Ankara celebrating the passage of the so called “Idil Biret law” in 1948 that has helped train her and many other musically gifted children abroad
1999 At the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Chopin’s death she gives an all Chopin recital. When the pianist Anatol Ugorski, who was to perform the day before her, cancels at noon the same day, with five hours notice Biret travels from Brussels to Stuttgart and from there by helicopter to reach Schwetzingen in time to play exactly the same Chopin program of Ugorski – Polonaise Fantasy Op. 61, Twelve Mazurkas, Sonata Op. 58. This is an unheard of feat which stupefies the Festival Director when he hears that she will play the same program and says “Das ist unglaublich, das kann man nicht machen / That is unbelievable one cannot do that”. It is learnt that Andrei Gavrilov, who was to perform the evening after Biret has also cancelled. Both pianists that cancelled were Deutsche Gramophone artists. Why they cancelled will be understood later (see 2001)
2000 Gives recitals at the antique theaters in Ephesus and Pergamon. Gives a recital in memory of Wilhelm Kempff in Thurnau, Germany at the chateau where Kempff resided in the years immediately after 1945
2001 A letter from Germany informs her that she has been blacklisted by a major record label (name withheld) because of her recording for Naxos. A well known concert agent in Düsseldorf states privately that concert and festival organizers, orchestras told not to engage Biret. Otherwise, artists with contracts to the that label will not accept engagements from the organizer or will cancel if already engaged. This explains the cancellations by the two pianists who were scheduled to play before and after Biret at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1999 and why the festival never again invited her despite the “unheard of” performance of another artist’s recital program at short notice
2002 She records Ligeti’s Etudes Books I and II which is released by Naxos to great critical acclaim
2003 She records Stravinsky’s own piano transcription of The Firebird for Naxos which is selected by the Gramophone magazine editor among of the best recordings of the year
2004 Antoni Wit, who has recorded all the piano concertos of Brahms and Rachmaninov with Biret, invites her to perform with the Warsaw Philharmonic when he becomes the orchestra’s music director. She plays Beethoven’s 2nd Concerto there. Naxos announces that the sale Idil Biret’s CDs has reached two million
2005 Returns to Boston for a concert four decades after her US debut there with the Boston Symhpony Orchestra
2006 At her second Mexican tour with concerts in Monterrey, Mexico City, Cuernavaca, information is received that confirms her blacklisting. Gerhard Abel, who organized her tour, later tells Idil Biret that they had also invited pianist Pavel Gililov who resided in Germany to give a concert in Cuernavaca. While there he asked who would play in the recital series after himself. When Gerhard said that it would be Idil Biret, Pavel Gililov frowns and says, “But, she is blacklisted”. Mr. Abel then asks him why. Mr. Gililov replies saying “Because she is recording for Naxos which is selling CDs cheaply”. Mr. Abel then says to him that here it is Mexico and not Germany
This also explained an odd event of a few years back. The Swedish Radio had sent two staff members to Idil Biret’s Brussels home to interview her for a program on Nadia Boulanger. They also asked if she would accept to perform with the Swedish Radio Orchestra and Biret said she would be glad to. Later came a message from one of these Radio staff who, with great embarrassment, informed that the music director of the orchestra had said he could not conduct her concert. Obviously, the blacklisting information had reached him and put fear in his heart
It also clarified a recent message from her agent in Holland who said that she could easily get engagements for all her artists except for Idil Biret and given her great career she did not understand why. Pavel Gililov had provided the answer in Mexico
Buchet-Chastel publishes her book of memoirs titled “Une Pianiste Turque en France / A Turkish Pianist in France” which was authored jointly with Prof. Dominique Xardel
2007 President Lech Kaczsnky decorates Biret with the highest order of Poland (Krzyzem Kawalerskim Ordera Zaslugi) for her contribution to Polish culture through her recordings and performances of Chopin’s music
She gives the first sold out concert of the New Orleans Philharmonic after the devastation of the Katrina Hurricane there. Then, she gives a recital in San Francisco. She is a member of the Scottish Piano Competition Jury later in the year.
2008 Tours Poland giving recitals in Gdansk, Lublin and plays the Schumann Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Valek. She is a member of the jury in the first Sviatoslav Richter Piano Competition in Moscow. She is also a member of the jury of the Geneva Piano Competition. Idil Biret Archive label is established, to be distributed worldwide with Naxos catalogue numbers as proposed by Klaus Heymann
2009 She performs the Grieg Concerto with the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra in Caracas. Then she travels to Cuba to play Beethoven’s 4th Concerto with the Havana Symphony Orchestra. She later gives a benefit recital in New York for the “Send a Piana to Havana” organization (they send gift pianos to Cuba and annually go there to maintain the instruments and tune them)
2010 She plays a recital at her husband’s alma mater Yale University. Then joins the Yale Symphony Orchestra in their tour of Turkey playing the Chopin Concerto in F Minor with Toshi Shimada conducting. She plats Chopin’s E Minor Concerto with the Krakow Philharmonic conducted by Kazimierz Kord and then gives recitals in Lublin and Lodz during the Chopin Bicentennial. Poland’s well known newspaper Rzeczpostpolita publishes in 15 books the life of Chopin and includes Biret’s recordings on CDs introducing them as “The complete works of our genius composer in the sensational interpretations by Idil Biret”
2011 She is a member of the jury of Rachmaninov Competition with Victor Merjanov at the Russian Consulate in Istanbul. She perform and records Berlioz’ Harold in Italy in its piano transcription by Liszt with the eminent Turkish viola player Rusen Günes. Gives recitals in Berlin and Leipzig
2012 With the Yale Symphony Orchestra she plays Liszt Concerto No. 1 and Hindemith’s Four Temperaments at the Woolsey Hall of the University. She then records all the five works of Hindemith for piano and orchestra with the Yale Orchestra conducted by Toshi Shimada. She makes a tour of Latin America, with concerts in Bogota, lima, Santiago de Chile, Buones Aires and Sao Paolo. Plays recitals in Beijing and Shanghai. She is a jury member of the Shanghai Piano Competition. She gives recitals in Cairo and Alexandria
2013 Naxos releases her recording of the Complete Piano Concertos of Hindemith (2CDs) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. She plays Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jean Bernard Pommier at the Gebele Festival in Azerbeican. She is a member of the jury of the Beethoven Pinao Competition in Bonn.
2015 Records Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier Books I and II. Tours South Africa with concerts in Cape Town and Pretoria. Starts a series of Mozart concerto recordings with the London Mozart Players
2016 Plays Hindemith’s Piano Concerto at the Carnegie Hall in New York with the Yale Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toshi Shimada. She gives recitals in Monterrey and Cuernavaca in Mexico
2017 She is on the jury of the Montreal Piano Competition in Canada. Gives a recital at Ganz Hall in Chicago. She is a member of the Bayerische Rundfunk Piano Competition in Munich. Travels to Rachmaninov Museum in Ivanovka Russia at the farm where Rachmaninov spent the summer months until 1917 to give a recital of his music. Gives a recital in Moscow. Gives masterclasses and a recital at Bayreuth, Germany
2018 Records Debussy’s Etudes Book I and II, Preludes Book I, Suite Bergamasque and other works on two CDs for the Debussy Centennial. She makes a South England tour with a final recital in London. Gives a recital in Tirana, Albania. Her complete studio recordings since 1959 with some concert takes are released in a box set 130 CDs in ten box sets with eleven booklets of 800 pages. Naxos distributes the box set weighing 6.5kg worldwide. There are sixty concerto recordings and almost all the major works of the solo piano repertory together with a selected number of chamber works in this anthology of a life time’s work
2019 Travels to Sochi, Russia to perform Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody with the Festival Orchestra to be conducted by Youri Bashmet. Gives a recital in Samsun, Turkey in May to celebrate the Centennial of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s landing there which started the Turkish war of independence from the powers that occupied the country after the First World War. For the 60th anniversary of her first concerts at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, she returns there and plays in front of an audience of two thousand invited guests
2020 She gives the opening recital of the new 2000 seat concert hall of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. Her two concerts in Chicago at the Northwestern University are cancelled due to the covid epidemic. All other concerts elsewhere also cancelled
2021 A scheduled recital in Stockholm is postponed to 2022 due to the covid epidemic. All other engagements cancelled or postponed. A box set of 4 CDs “Best of Turkish Piano Music” is released.