Menahem Pressler: A century of legend

Max Jacob Pressler was born on December 16, 1923, in Magdeburg, Germany. He later took the name Menahem, meaning “comforter” or “consoler.” He died on May 6, 2023, in London at the age of 99—just shy of his one-hundredth birthday.

He was truly an indomitable force and a legend known round the world—offering comfort and more to innumerable listeners through his music.

Pressler joined the Jacobs School of Music piano faculty in 1955 and served the school for over 67 years. He was named Distinguished Professor of Music in 1975 and Dean Charles H. Webb Chair in Music in 1998.

Other honors from Indiana University include the President’s Medal for Excellence (1985), President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching (1989), and University Medal (2013).

Cofounding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, Pressler established himself among the world’s most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spanned more than seven decades. He continued to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated teaching career.

Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Palestine. His world-renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946, followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Ormandy. Pressler’s ensuing tours of North America, Europe, and the Far East included performances with virtually all of the world’s leading orchestras.

After nearly a decade of an illustrious and praised solo career, the 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Pressler’s debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established his reputation as one of the world’s most revered chamber musicians.

With Pressler at the trio’s helm as its only pianist for nearly 55 years, The New York Times described the Beaux Arts Trio as “in a class by itself,” and The Washington Post exclaimed that “since its founding more than 50 years ago, the Beaux Arts Trio has become the gold standard for trios throughout the world.”

The 2007-08 season was bittersweet, as violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Antonio Meneses, and Pressler took their final bows as the Beaux Arts Trio, marking the end of one of the most celebrated and revered chamber music careers of all time.

On June 28, 2008, after 53 years of setting the standard for piano trios, the Beaux Arts Trio performed in Bloomington’s Musical Arts Center as part of its internationally celebrated farewell tour. The trio’s final American concert was in August at Tanglewood, and its final performance was in Switzerland in September. Photos by Alain Barker

Pressler continued to excite audiences throughout the world, both as piano soloist and collaborating chamber musician. Nearing 90, he collaborated with tenor Christoph Prégardien, playing Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise for the first time.

Following lifesaving surgery in 2015, Pressler resumed his robust teaching and touring schedule the same year in the United States and Europe. In 2017-18, he toured the U.S., Europe, Israel, and Asia, giving recitals, playing chamber music, as soloist with orchestra, and giving master classes. In 2018, he again performed across the U.S. and Europe, and in Tokyo.

Equally as illustrious as his performing career, Pressler was a master pedagogue and had prize-winning students in all of the major international piano competitions. His former students grace the faculties of prestigious schools of music across the world and have become some of the most prominent and influential artist-teachers today.

In addition to instructing his private students at the Jacobs School of Music, Pressler presented master classes throughout the world and served on the jury of numerous international piano competitions. Many contemporary composers wrote works especially for him.

Among his myriad honors and awards, Pressler received honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, University of Nebraska, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, North Carolina School of the Arts, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Be’er Sheva (Israel) as well as an Honorary RAM from the Royal Academy of Music London.

He garnered five Grammy nominations, lifetime achievement awards from Gramophone magazine and the International Chamber Music Association, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He was also awarded the German Critics “Ehrenurkunde” award and election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

World-renowned violinist and Jacobs alumnus Joshua Bell joined Pressler in a special concert together on December 9, 2014, at the Musical Arts Center. Photos by Alain Barker

In 2005, Pressler was honored with two additional awards of international merit: the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award, France’s highest cultural honor.

In 2007, he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music.

Further honors and awards include the prestigious Wigmore Medal (2011), the Menuhin Prize, given by Queen Sofia of Spain (2012), inductions into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and the Gramophone Hall of Fame (2012), and the Music Teachers National Association Achievement Award. Pressler received the 2015 ECHO Klassik Lifetime Achievement Award in Germany and the 2016 Victoire d’honneur Lifetime Achievement Award from the French Victoires de la Musique Classique.