Dame Julia Myra Hess (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was an Englishpianist known for her performances of the works ofBach,Mozart,Beethoven,Schumann, andBrahms.[1] She famously organised concerts in London during theSecond World War andThe Blitz.
Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 to aJewish family[2] inSouth Hampstead, London.[3] Her paternal grandfather had immigrated from Alsace. She was the youngest of four children and began piano lessons at the age of five.[2] She studied at theGuildhall School of Music and at theRoyal Academy of Music underTobias Matthay, after winning a scholarship to the latter in 1903 at age 12.[1][4]
Hess's debut came in 1907 when she playedBeethoven'sPiano Concerto No. 4 withThomas 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.[5] In 1912 she performed with theAmsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted byWillem Mengelberg.[6]
During World War I large-scale musical activity ceased in Britain and Europe.
After her American debut inNew York City on 24 January 1922, Hess became a favourite in the United States, as both a soloist and ensemble player.
Hess garnered greater fame during theSecond 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 throughThe Blitz.[4] The concerts were held at theNational Gallery, inTrafalgar 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.[7] If the Gallery building in central London was being bombed, the concert was occasionally relocated before returning. Promising young performers (such asEiluned Davies, who gave the UK premiere of Shostakovich's Piano Sonata, Op. 12 at the Gallery on 31 May 1943)[8] 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 fiveguineas, no matter who they were, with the exception of Hess herself, who never took a fee for her appearances in the series.[9]
In all, Hess presented 1,698 concerts seen by 824,152 people; she personally played in 150 of them.[10] She made a brief appearance performing at one of her lunchtime concerts in the 1942 wartime documentaryListen to Britain (directed byHumphrey Jennings andStewart McAllister), a performance enjoyed by theQueen in the audience.[4]
For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the populace of London, KingGeorge VI created her aDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1941. (She had previously been created aCBE in 1936.)[11] Hess's lunchtime concerts influenced the formation of theCity Music Society, according to the organisation's website.[12]
In 1946,Arturo Toscanini invited Hess to perform with theNBC Symphony Orchestra inNew 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 performBeethoven's Third. The 24 November 1946 broadcast concert was preserved ontranscription discs and later issued on CD byNaxos Records.[13][14]
Hess performed theBrahms Piano Concerto No. 2 withBruno Walter and theNew York Philharmonic Orchestra in February 1951, with the solo cello performed byLeonard Rose.[15]
At the Prades Festival in 1952 Hess performed the Brahms Piano Trio Op. 87 with violinistJoseph Szigeti and cellistPablo Casals.[16]
Hess was most renowned for her interpretations of the works ofMozart, Beethoven,Schumann, andBrahms, but had a wide repertoire, ranging fromDomenico Scarlatti to contemporary works.[17] She gave the premiere ofHoward Ferguson's Piano Sonata and his Piano Concerto. She also played a good amount ofchamber music and performed in a piano duo withIrene Scharrer who was her cousin.[18] Hess promoted public awareness of the piano duet and two-piano works ofSchubert.
In 1926 and 1934 Hessarranged, for both solo piano and for two pianos the choraleWohl mir, daß ich Jesum habe fromBach's CantataHerz 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 hymnJesu, meiner Seelen Wonne byMartin Janus (or Jahn). Her arrangement was published under the titleJesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,[19] which is a rough translation of the name of this hymn, although the line does not itself appear in Bach's cantata.
Hess's protégés includedClive Lythgoe andRichard and John Contiguglia. She also taughtStephen Kovacevich (then known as Stephen Bishop) andJane Carlson.[20] She also has a link to jazz, having given lessons in the 1920s to Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck, mother ofDave Brubeck.[21] From 1960 to 1961 she taughtYonty Solomon.[22]
Arnold Bax's 1915 piano pieceIn a Vodka Shop is dedicated to Hess.
In September 1961, Hess played her final public concert at London'sRoyal Festival Hall. She was forced to retire after suffering a stroke in early 1961 that left her with permanent brain damage.[23] 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, notablyStephen Kovacevich, during her last years.
On 25 November 1965, Hess died at the age of 75 of a heart attack in her London home.[24] Ablue plaque marks her residence at 48 Wildwood Road inHampstead Garden Suburb, London.[25]
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 composerNigel Hess,[26] who named his music publishing company Myra Music in her honour, and theConservative politician and formerChancellor of the ExchequerNigel Lawson.[27]
In 1977, theChicago 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 stationWFMT and streamed at WFMT.com.[28]
