Farewell, Zuzana

Zuzana at home in Prague in September 2016, preparing for our interview...

News has just broken that Zuzana Ružičková, the great Czech harpsichordist, died peacefully today at the age of 90.

Devastated, but so glad that I went over to meet her when I did, about a year ago. Interviewing her was a joy, privilege and inspiration. It is also wonderful that Warner Classics released all her Bach recordings on CD at long last, to celebrate her big birthday last January. Here is my article about her for the JC.

Farewell, then, to the ultimate survivor. We were lucky to have her at all.

The ultimate survivor

Zuzana Ružičková at home in Prague. Photo by jd

She survived disease, three concentration camps, communism and its associated anti-Semitism in Czechoslovakia, yet plays the most life-affirming Bach you could hope to hear.

My articles about Zuzana Ružičková are out now, one in the JC and one in the January issue of BBC Music Magazine. The interview transcript following my visit to her in Prague a couple of months ago runs to the length of a small book, so it was great to be able to write two different pieces (the BBCMM one containing more of the Bachy, harpsichordy material). The JC's is out this week and online now, here. You can order a copy of BBC Music Magazine here.

Possibly my best interview ever

I've been away in Prague to meet the harpsichordist Zuzana Ružičková [from whose name a few accents are probably still missing]. She will be 90 in January and her recording from the 1960s-70s of Bach's complete keyboard music is being released on CD for the first time to celebrate her birthday (on Warner - more details here.)

Her most famous contemporary student, Mahan Esfahani, was there too - and, as you can see, we had the sort of fun time that people don't often associate with harpsichords. But that's these guys all over: the sort of joie-de-vivre and sonic imagination that bounces out of their playing can make you think this supposedly rarified early keyboard is the queen of all the instruments. I've been having a sneak preview of the Bach discs and they are a revelation.

Zuzana survived Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She and her husband, the composer Viktor Kalabis, then had to contend with the communist directives of the Czech Republic. And then came the early music movement. We talked all afternoon. Full results due out in the next little while.

Prague is possibly the most beautiful city I've ever seen. And interesting, too, to note that it was here that Beethoven had his famous rendezvous with his Immortal Beloved, supposedly on 3 July 1812. More of that soon, as on Saturday I'm off to the Midlands to speak about this extraordinary history at the Bromsgrove Beethoven Quartetfest, during which the Dante Quartet is playing all the quartets.