Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir facts for kids
Bracha Eden (born July 15, 1928 – died May 23, 2006) and Alexander Tamir (born April 2, 1931 – died August 15, 2019) were famous Israeli pianists. They performed together as a piano duo.
Their Lives and Music Journey
Alexander Wolkovsky, who later changed his name to Tamir, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. When he was just eleven years old in 1942, he wrote a Yiddish song called "Shtiler, shtiler" ("Quiet, quiet"). He wrote it for a music contest held in the Vilna Ghetto, a special area where Jewish people were forced to live during World War II. The song was made to sound like a lullaby to trick the Nazis, who were a dangerous political group at the time. Sadly, many of the children who were supposed to sing the song were killed before they could perform. An Israeli film called Ponar tells the story of this event and Tamir's return to his hometown.
After World War II, Alexander settled in Jerusalem and changed his name to Tamir. Not much information is known about Bracha Eden's early life. She was older than Alexander and preferred to stay out of the spotlight.
Bracha and Alexander met while they were studying music at the Rubin Academy. Their teacher, Alexander Schroeder, encouraged them to play together. In 1952, they officially formed their piano duo. They continued to study music in the United States with another famous piano duo, Vronsky & Babin.
Their Amazing Music Career
Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir had their first public performance as a duo in 1954 in Israel. In 1957, they won the important Vercelli Competition. After that, they traveled all over the world, performing in many countries. They gave concerts by themselves and also played with some of the world's greatest orchestras.
Later, they became senior professors at the Rubin Academy, where they once studied. Alexander Tamir even became the dean, or head, of the academy for a time.
In 1968, Tamir and Eden started the Max Targ Chamber Music Center in Ein Kerem. Alexander Tamir also created the Young Artists Competition and the Israel Chopin Society. He was also part of the board for the International Federation of Chopin Societies.
In the 1990s, they began to perform and teach music regularly in countries like China, Russia, and Poland. By 1997, they became the directors of the International Duo Piano Seminary, where they taught other piano duos.
Their Musical Repertoire
"Repertoire" means all the pieces of music that a musician or group can perform. Some of Eden and Tamir's early recordings were released under the names "Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir," but some now appear as "Bracha Eden and Alexander Wolkovski."
They recorded all the pieces written for two pianos and piano duet by famous composers like Brahms, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, and Schumann. They also recorded individual works by many other composers, including Bach, Bartók, Debussy, Poulenc, and Ravel. They even won a special award called the Grand Prix du Disque for their recording of Brahms's Sonata in F minor for Two Pianos.
Eden and Tamir were the first to perform Lutosławski's Paganini Variations in America in 1955. Also, at the suggestion of the composer Stravinsky himself, they were the first to perform and record the piano duet version of his famous work The Rite of Spring. They also recorded Brahms's four symphonies, which Brahms himself had arranged for two pianos. They also brought attention to older, less-known works for two pianos by composers like Clementi, Dussek, and Hummel.
Alexander Tamir also created several new arrangements of music for piano duo and duet. He also wrote a few original pieces for piano duo.
