Background
Tarnowsky was born in Kiev. His mother was a singer who had studied in Italy, and his father was a jurist.
Tarnowsky was born in Kiev. His mother was a singer who had studied in Italy, and his father was a jurist.
At the age of eight he studied privately with Henryk Bobinski, a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory.
Visiting musicians often visited the family home and Sergei showed an interest in the piano at an early age. At age 19 he commenced studies with Anna Yesipova at the Saint St. Petersburg Conservatory. The director of the Conservatory was Alexander Glazunov, whose stepdaughter Tarnowsky later married.
He went to teach at Odessa, where he appeared as soloist under Vasily Safonov.
Safonov was so impressed that he arranged for Tarnowsky to appear with the Berlin Philharmonic in a program of three works for piano and orchestra - concertos by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and a Fantasy by Arensky. He then toured other European cities.
In Rome he performed Rachmaninoff"s Piano Concerto Number. 1, after which he was congratulated by Cosima Wagner, who was in the audience.
In between concert tours, Tarnowsky worked at the Mariinsky Theatre with Albert Coates.
His other students at Kiev included Alexander Uninsky, Vladimir Yampolsky and Anatole Kitain. Tarnowsky married Glazunov"s stepdaughter in 1928 and they moved to Paris. They emigrated to the United States in 1930.
In 1933 he joined the De Paul University School of Music in Chicago and appeared in concert with artists such as Nathan Milstein, William Primrose, Raya Garbousova and Maria Kurenko.
He recorded an album of Tchaikovsky songs with Kurenko. Among the many pianists he taught during his years in Southern California is the Cuban virtuoso Horacio Gutiérrez, who Tarnowsky claimed was the biggest pianistic talent he had encountered since Vladimir Horowitz.
Other students included Rebecca Anna Lou Melson, later to become the wife and widow of William Kapell (she is now known as Anna Lou Dehavenon) and Madeleine Stowe, who gave music up to become an actress when Tarnowsky died.