, in 1937]] Dame Julia Myra Hess, (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was an English pianist best known for her performances of the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms.
Career
Early life
Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 to a
Jews family
in
South Hampstead, London.
Her paternal grandfather had immigrated from Alsace. She was the youngest of four children and began piano lessons at the age of five.
She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and at the Royal Academy of Music under
Tobias Matthay, after winning a scholarship to the latter in 1903 at age 12.
Hess's debut came in 1907 when she played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Thomas Beecham conducting. She went on to tour through Britain, the Netherlands and France, with the violinist Aldo Antonietti, with whom she had a love affair.
During World War I large-scale musical activity ceased in Britain and Europe.
After her American debut in New York City on 24 January 1922, Hess became a favourite in the United States, as both a soloist and ensemble player.
Second World War
Hess garnered greater fame during the Second World War when, with all concert halls blacked out at night to avoid being targeted by German bombers, she organised almost 2,000 lunchtime concerts, starting shortly after the war began and continuing even through
The Blitz.
The concerts were held at the
National Gallery, in
Trafalgar Square. Hess began her lunchtime concerts a few weeks after the start of the war. They were presented on Monday to Friday, for six-and-a-half years without fail.
[Myers, Rollo. 'Music in Battle-dress', in Music Since 1939 (1947), pp. 9-30] If the Gallery building in central London was being bombed, the concert was occasionally relocated before returning. Promising young performers (such as
Eiluned Davies, who gave the UK premiere of Shostakovich's Piano Sonata, Op. 12 at the Gallery on 31 May 1943)
[ 'London Concerts', in The Musical Times, Vol. 84, No. 1204 (June 1943), p. 191] were given the opportunity to appear in the concerts alongside established musicians, initially for no fee but after a while all the performers received a standard 'expense fee' of five guineas, no matter who they were, with the exception of Hess herself, who never took a fee for her appearances in the series.
[Fifield, Christopher, Ibbs and Tillett: The Rise and Fall of a Musical Empire (2005), p.240]
In all, Hess presented 1,698 concerts seen by 824,152 people; she personally played in 150 of them.
For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the populace of London, King George VI created her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1941. (She had previously been created a CBE in 1936.)
Post-war career
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 24 November 1946 broadcast concert was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD by
Naxos Records.
Hess performed the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in February 1951, with the solo cello performed by Leonard Rose.
At the Prades Festival in 1952 Hess performed the Brahms Piano Trio Op. 87 with violinist Joseph Szigeti and cellist Pablo Casals.
Hess was most renowned for her interpretations of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Brahms, but had a wide repertoire, ranging from Domenico Scarlatti to contemporary works.
In 1926 and 1934 Hess arranged, for both solo piano and for two pianos the chorale Wohl mir, daß ich Jesum habe from Bach's Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (BWV 147). This is Movement 6 of the cantata; the music is the same for Movement 10, Jesus bleibet meine Freude. Each of these movements takes its text from a verse of the hymn Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne by Martin Janus (or Jahn). Her arrangement was published under the title Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,
Protégés and influence
Hess's protégés included
Clive Lythgoe and Richard and John Contiguglia. She also taught Stephen Kovacevich (then known as Stephen Bishop) and
Jane Carlson.
She also has a link to jazz, having given lessons in the 1920s to Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck, mother of
Dave Brubeck.
From 1960 to 1961 she taught
Yonty Solomon.
Arnold Bax's 1915 piano piece In a Vodka Shop is dedicated to Hess.
Last concert and retirement
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. She continued to teach a handful of students, notably Stephen Kovacevich, during her last years.
Death
On 25 November 1965, Hess died at the age of 75 of a heart attack in her London home.
A
blue plaque marks her residence at 48 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.
Hess's Steinway piano remains at the Bishopsgate Institute and has been renamed "Myra The Steinway" in her honour.
Hess's great-nephews included the British composer Nigel Hess,[ The Guardian, "Lord Lawson of Blaby obituary". The Guardian, Retrieved 4 April 2023.]
Chicago Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts
In 1977, the Chicago Cultural Center began a series of free lunchtime concerts held at its Preston Bradley Hall every Wednesday from 12:15 pm to 1:00 pm, named in Hess's honour as the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The series is produced by Chicago's International Music Foundation, with performances at Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist in Chicago. Since 1977, the concerts have been broadcast live on radio station
WFMT and streamed at WFMT.com.
Bibliography
-
Denise Lassimonne and Howard Ferguson, eds.: Myra Hess by her Friends (1966)
-
Marion McKenna: Myra Hess, a Portrait (1976)
-
Jessica Duchen: Myra Hess – National Treasure, Kahn & Averill (2025)
External links
