Idil Biret was introduced very early to the music of Bach. At the age of three she was trying to play from ear the preludes of Bach from the Well Tempered Clavier which her mother played on their upright piano and drawing his picture in her note book. In her memoirs, Idil’s mother Leman Biret writes: “After listening for a while to orchestral music on the radio ldil would detect the main melody and then play it on the piano with one finger. Afterwards, when she reached the age of four, she would play these on the piano with two hands and with the correct harmony. Bach preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier, for example, which even the talented musicians took considerable time to study and memorise, were mastered by Idil in only a few days after listening once or twice, after which she would play these without a single wrong note.’’ Then, at the age of four her teacher Mithat Fenmen played for Idil on a 78rpm record by Edwin Fischer the Prelude and Fugue in F minor from the Well Tempered Clavier Book II. She says that Bach’s music has been a part of her life ever since that day. In 1946, at the age of five, she played the D minor Piano Concerto of Bach with a string quartet at the Ankara Radio, a work that would be a staple of her concert programmes from then on.

Idil Biret, a child prodigy, was sent abroad to study in France when the Turkish National Assembly passed a law for this purpose in 1948. She studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger, graduating with premier prix in 1957. Later she perfected interpretation under Wilhelm Kempff and Alfred Cortot. She has widely concertised since the age of sixteen all over the world and made a large number of recordings for various labels. Idil is a State Artist of Turkey and has been decorated by France and Poland with high orders. She gave masterclasses at the Ayvalık Music Academy in Turkey from 2008 onwards.

“The remarkable evening began with D minor Piano Concerto of J.S. Bach. The concerto required, from the very first measure, agile, precise dexterity from the pianist. Idil Biret took the challenge with a ravishing pulse which carried one away. How this artist combines the strict discipline of the score with the capacity to build sovereign forms is exemplary. Energetically, she drove the flanking Allegro movements forward and dwelled on the song like beauties of the Adagio with concentrated abandon.” – Dietrich Wolf, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten