ZUZANA RŮŽIČKOVÁ was born on 14 January 1927 in the city of Plzeň in western Bohemia. Her musical ability and predilection for Bach were apparent from an early age, and she prepared for admission to Wanda Landowska's classes at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt near Paris. The opportunity to study abroad soon became an impossibility with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, and in January 1942 she and her family were interred at the Terezin ghetto. After the death of her father and grandparents at Terezin, she was sent to Aushwitz along with her mother. In 1944 they were both sent to Hamburg as forced laborers, and later spent the final days of the war interred at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp. Upon her recovery she was determined to resume her musical education and studied piano with Bohdan Gsölhofer in Plzeň. From 1947-51 she attended the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague where her professors included pianists Albín Šíma, František Rauch and harpsichordist Oldřich Kredba. At this time she decided to specialize in the interpretation of early music and gave her first harpsichord recital in 1951. In 1956 she won the International Music Competition in Munich and accepted a scholarship from jury member Marguerite Roesgen-Champion to continue her harpsichord studies in Paris.
Her success at the Munich competition marked the beginning of an international career. Since that time she has performed regularly throughout Europe and has made repeated visits to Japan and the United States. She has performed at Bach Festivals in Leipzig, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Ansbach, Frankfurt, Schaffhausen, Bath and Oregon. In 1962 she co-founded the Prague Chamber Soloists with conductor Václav Neumann and in 1963 she formed a very successful duo with violinist Josef Suk. Other chamber music partners have included János Starker, Pierre Fournier, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Aurèle Nicolet and Maxence Larrieu. She has also worked with noted conductors including Serge Baudo, Paul Sacher, Herbert Blomstedt, Libor Pešek, Neville Marriner and Helmut Rilling. Her recorded repertoire is vast, spanning works from the English virginalists through those by modern composers such as Martinů, Poulenc, De Falla and Martin. The music of Bach, however, has always remained central to her art, culminating in an integral edition of his solo harpsichord works published by the French label Erato in 1975. Contemporary composers have also dedicated works to her, including Jan Rychlík's Hommagi clavicembalistici (1964), and she has premiered works by Emil Hlobil, Hans-Georg Görner and Elizabeth Maconchy. For 54 years she was married to the outstanding composer Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006), and she inspired him to compose several significant works for harpsichord: Six Two-Part Canonic Inventions (1962), Aquarelles (1979), Preludio, Aria e Toccata (1992), and the magnificent Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings (1975). Her career as an educator began at the Academy of Performing Arts in 1951, but only after the fall of communism was she finally given the title professor in 1990. She also established a harpsichord class at the Music Academy in Bratislava where she was guest professor from 1978-82. For twenty-five years she gave master classes in Zürich, with other classes taking place in Stuttgart, Kraków, Budapest, Riga and Tokyo. Her many students include Jaroslav Tůma, Giedré Lukšaité-Mrázková, Anikó Horváth and Borbála Dobozy.
Today she is retired from performing and teaching but is still very active in Czech musical life.
Tags: ZUZANA RŮŽIČKOVÁ Gigue Bach classical
