An Homage to Dame Myra Hess

By

Myra Hess photographed by Carl Van Vechten

A continuation of our tales from Vienna... 

 One of the works performed and recorded by Nina Kennedy at the Bösendorfer Salon was the arrangement for solo piano of the Chorale from Cantata number 147 called "Jesu bleibt meine Freude," (loosely translated "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") by Johann Sebastian Bach. That published arrangement was made by Dame Myra Hess, a world-renowned concert pianist and hero to the people of London because of the free afternoon concerts she organized and in which she performed at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square during the Second World War. Since there was an official black-out declared at the onset of the bombings by the Nazis, this meant that there were no evening concerts or gatherings because no lights could be turned on at night. Nearly 2,000 of these lunchtime concerts took place during the war, for six-and-a-half years. 

 For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the populace of London, King George VI proclaimed Myra Hess a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1941. His wife Queen Elizabeth, a great music lover and patron of the arts, was often in attendance at the National Gallery Concerts, bringing her daughters Elizabeth and Margaret along.

Hess was born on February 25th, 1890 to a Jewish family in South Hampstead. She was the youngest of four children, and began piano lessons at age five. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, under Tobias Matthay. She made her debut in 1907 when she played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. She went on to tour through Britain, the Netherlands and France. By 1920 Myra had a big career in England, giving over 100 concerts a year.


Upon her American debut (in New York City on January 24th, 1922), she became a prime favorite in the United States—not only as a soloist, but also as an ensemble player.


In 1946, Arturo Toscanini invited Hess to perform with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York City. According to Toscanini's biographer Mortimer Frank, after Hess and the conductor had failed to agree on tempos for Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, they decided instead to perform Beethoven's Third. The November 24th, 1946 broadcast concert was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD by Naxos Records.


Myra Hess never married. She lived with her companion Anita Gunn in the Hampstead Garden suburb of London.

In September 1961, Hess played her final public concert at London's Royal Festival Hall. She was forced to retire after suffering a stroke in early 1961 that left her with permanent brain damage. By the end of the summer of that year it became clear that her public playing days were over. 
On November 25th, 1965, Hess died at the age of 75 of a heart attack in her London home. A plaque commemorates her at 48 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Dame Myra Hess's first wartime concert at the National Gallery, the Myra Hess Memorial Concert will take place at the Gallery on October 10, 2019 at 1:00 pm.


Nina Kennedy at the National Gallery


We felt especially close to Myra while we were in London for the last week of our trip. Some of the staff at the National Gallery were not familiar with her name. Nina was happy to educate them, especially since her memorial concert was on the calendar for next month.

 Nina's performance of Myra Hess' arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" can be seen and heard in an upcoming episode of The Noshing with Nina Show.








Enjoy this clip of Dame Myra Hess performing her arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Khatia Buniatishvili: Beyoncé of Piano?

By
Image
Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili April Gibson and Nina Kennedy both contributed to this article to share their respective insights and opinions. April grew up listening to Hip Hop, Pop,  R&B,  and Hair Bands. Nina, herself a classical pianist, grew up listening to jazz and R&B, as well as symphonies and opera. Nina: While living in Paris I got in the habit of watching the news channel “France24,” and was delighted to find that I continued having access to France24 here in Manhattan. Now that most American news channels have become The Trump Show, I became more dependent on France24 to be able to hear some authentic international news. One day this summer while going about my business with the TV on, I heard the news anchor announce a feature story on “The Beyonc é  of the Piano.” I stopped what I was doing to sit down and watch. The subject of this segment was world-renowned Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, who has been referred to as "The B
Read more

Where Was James Baldwin's Boyfriend?

By
Image
James Baldwin As we are nearing the end of Black History Month, I find myself reading and listening to the words of James Baldwin. He became one of the most articulate voices of the Civil Rights Movement, yet it is hard to find any description or discussion - in his own words - of his life as a gay man. One could guess that he describes some of his gay life in the novel Giovanni's Room , which can easily be dismissed as a work of fiction. We know that he met the man who became the love of his life, Lucien Happersberger, in Paris in 1949, when Lucien was 17 and James was 25. The fact that Lucien was white could have served as proof that, at least in Baldwin's mind, black men and white men could love each other. But unfortunately, Baldwin chose to remain in the closet, using references to "... my wife" and "... my woman, my children..." in his interviews. The truth is, the most significant woman in his life was his mother, and the children he referred to were
Read more

Don Shirley, "Green Book," and Me

By
Image
I finally got the chance to sit down and watch the Oscar-winning film Green Book , on the life of African American concert pianist Don Shirley . As I had written in an earlier blog ( "Ebony and Ivory: A Dissonant Truth" ), I had visited with Dr. Shirley in his apartment above Carnegie Hall when my parents were in New York with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The film gave a very accurate depiction of his home and the extravagant, ostentatious décor. The Real Don Shirley in his home Don Shirley was praised early in his life as a genius, a wunderkind whose forte was the traditional classical repertoire. Composer Igor Stravinsky said of him: "His virtuosity is worthy of Gods." But his record label forced him to play jazz, and sent him on tour with a jazz trio. In an interview, Shirley said that his record label wanted him to appear in overalls with a red bandana around his neck on the album cover. He refused. In my own book I have written about facing racism as an African Am
Read more

Anne Gamble Kennedy (Not to be found on Wikipedia!)

By
Image
Since Wikipedia refuses to publish this article because they claim, "The subject's references do not adequately show the subject's notability," I am publishing it myself. I'd like to see any of those editors try to survive as a Black female in the American South during the 1940s and 50s. Anne Gamble's accomplishments are notable as HELL! Anne Gamble Kennedy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Anne Gamble Kennedy  (25 September 1920 – 11 June 2001) was an American classical  pianist , piano professor, and accompanist for the  Fisk Jubilee Singers  of  Nashville, Tennessee . Anne Gamble Kennedy Contents      1 Early life 2 Career 3 Selected discography 4 Notes Early life Anne Lucille Gamble was born in  Charleston, West Virginia  to Dr.  Henry Floyd Gamble  and the former Nina Hortense Clinton of Zanesville, Ohio. She was the younger of two children born to that union. She also had two older step-siblings, Katherine Lee
Read more

Bradley Cooper's "Maestro": Ho-Hum! Another Movie About White People

By
Image
  Granted, most Hollywood films about American celebrities of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are going to be about white people. But in a film about Leonard Bernstein, there were several opportunities to tell the story about Lenny marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, or Lenny introducing young André  Watts to the world concert stage, or even Lenny conducting Marian Anderson with the Israel Philharmonic. But no. The producers of Maestro chose to ignore the existence of African Americans, except when Bernstein's wife, Felicia (portrayed by Carey Mulligan), needed a nurse more than an hour and forty-five minutes into the film. At the very end, Bernstein directs his drunken, romantic attention toward a young black male conducting student, whom he had just instructed in a conducting master class. I suppose this young conducting student represented the future of classical music. But for a people who had been so discriminated against after the Second World War that young Bernstei
Read more

Juilliard Covers Its Ass

By
Image
On April 23rd, I received an email from the Juilliard Alumni Association director. In it was an email from the president of the school addressing an issue concerning a workshop conducted by the Drama Division. Evidently, the Drama Division invited a guest lecturer who conducted a workshop on the African American experience during slavery. In the words of President Woetzel to students, faculty, and staff:       "I write to you to address a September 2020 Drama Division workshop that has impacted our school community. While I am s haring a message below that was sent to the drama community by Evan Yionoulis, dean and director of the Drama Division, I believe it is important for our school community to hear directly from me.      To live our values requires an acknowledgment of mistakes we have made. To that end, I want to state unequivocally that this workshop was ill-conceived and should not have occurred in the manner that it did. I extend a heartfelt apology to the individuals wh
Read more

Love, Like Music: A Review of Nina Kennedy's "Practicing for Love: A Memoir" by Dean and Petra Aldrich

By
Image
Love, Like Music A joint review by Dean and Petra Aldrich of Practicing for Love , Nina Kennedy’s richly detailed and frank memoir. “For those in the world of classical music, Kennedy’s book is a winner. Her musical talent and technical achievements are obvious to anyone familiar with the works in her repertoire. Moreover, her descriptions of the challenges she faced as a Black woman in classical music provide essential, timely, and pointed critiques of the field. Musicians, composers, conductors – take note!” - Dean Aldrich, father, trained concert pianist, teacher of music and history, and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in piano performance and music education (Bachelor and Master degrees). “Kennedy’s memoir provides fascinating and essential insights into lesbian history and the experiences of lesbians in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. Truly, the value of this opportunity to see such a pivotal period in LGBTQ+ history through Black and lesbian
Read more

The Fisk Jubilee Singers at the Kennedy Center

By
Image
Matthew Kennedy directing the Fisk Jubilee Singers of 1971-72 Again for posterity (since all of the articles appearing in this blog can be found online in perpetuity), here is the review of the Fisk Jubilee Singers' concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. as it appeared in Down Beat Magazine in 1972. It is listed in the Down Beat magazine archives . 
Read more