Pressler began his teaching career at IU in 1955.
(Courtesy of IU Jacobs School of Music)
Internationally renowned pianist Menahem Pressler died Saturday in London at the age of 99, Indiana University’s music school announced.
Pressler was a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, an award-winning performer and chamber musician, and faculty member at IU’s Jacobs School of Music.
He joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1955 after fleeing Nazi Germany with his family. His grandparents and aunts and uncles were killed in Auschwitz.
Up until his death, Pressler continued to teach.
“He was someone who is known not only for the his incredible musicality and piano playing but also for his goodness and kindness. And just the way he went through the world was remarkable,” Abra Bush, dean of the Jacobs school, said Sunday.
Bush said the school would announce memorial plans.
Today the world gained a King. But today we also lost one. Farewell Menahem, and thank you. For everything.
Pressler captivated audiences as a solo artist and a chamber musician.
“To say that he was the greatest pianist in a chamber group that probably existed is not a prejudice on my part. I think it's a reality,” Henry Upper, the retired executive associate dean of the Jacobs School of Music, said Sunday.
He also said the word “retirement” was not part of Pressler’s vocabulary.
“Menachem was able to build an international career — a very busy international career — and be one of the foremost chamber musicians that the country has ever known or maybe the world has ever known to also, then, be away and come back,” he said.
“Menahem would land at the Indianapolis airport, be brought to Bloomington, and come right to the School of Music — not even bothered to drop baggage at home, come to the School of Music and begin teaching.”
In a 2013 interview, Pressler said music gave him life.
“It’s not a profession. When you see music, when you hear a great pianist — truly a great pianist — you know it’s a calling,” he said.
During Pressler’s career, which spanned more than 70 years, he received numerous awards and honors including six Grammy nominations, several honorary doctorates and international awards from Germany, Spain and France.
Pressler started playing when he was five or six years old.
“My father would always say to me after he came home from a day of work, ‘Didn’t you have enough of practicing now?’ I never had enough,” he said.
He came to the United States in 1946 to, he said, find out how good he was.
At the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco, he won first prize and international attention.
“I still feel that feeling which I had going into the telegram office and sent home a telegram saying I won. That was a great great thrill,” he said.
Soon after, Pressler made his New York debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
He would go on to tour the world and perform with orchestras in Paris, Dallas, London, Cleveland and many others.
In 1955, Pressler began his teaching career at IU and started the Beaux Arts Trio.
He made more than 50 recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, which has been called by many the best trio of all time.
The group took its final bow in 2008.
But Pressler continued to teach at IU. He viewed it as a way to stay young and leave something behind when he was gone.
“Teaching has been my life’s work,” he said. “And that has been mostly concentrated at IU. I have had many many offers to leave with less work and more pay, and who wouldn’t leave? I didn’t. I was happy here.”
Pressler performed in Bloomington every year. And he called it his most daunting venue because his students were in the audience.
