Patricia Carroll
Pianist who overcame prejudice and a series of accidents to become a popular soloist and teacher
PATRICIA CARROLL, who has died aged 85, was one of the first women to perform a piano concerto at the Royal Festival Hall, playing Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto in October 1952 at the age of 20 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Stratton; according to the Daily Herald, she “brought fire and colour to an unhackneyed interpretation”.
She remained a popular soloist, being heard three times at the Proms, including the First Night in 1962 when she played Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent nine months after her first child was born. There was much anxiety when the babysitter failed to arrive, but fortunately a neighbour, who earlier had threatened to throw a brick through the window in protest at her constant practising, had a change of heart and came to the rescue.
Four years later Patricia Carroll was expecting her third child when she was asked to perform Alan Rawsthorne’s Second Piano Concerto in Germany. “I had four days’ notice and had never heard or played the concerto before,” she recalled. To make matters worse Lufthansa lost her luggage, including the music. Nevertheless, the Nordsee-zeitung newspaper praised her “lively and enthusiastic playing”.
Winifred Patricia Carroll was born in Sidcup, Kent, on May 6 1932, the eldest of four children of Patrick, whose violin had accompanied him to the Dardanelles during the Great War, and his wife, Winifred, also an amateur musician. A neighbour spotted Patricia’s potential and offered to pay for her first piano lessons, but they were delayed after she put her hand through a piece of glass. “I remember an impressive fountain of blood, a dash to the hospital and a deep sleep,” she said.
When war broke out her father, haunted by memories of the previous conflict, suffered a breakdown. During the Blitz the family moved to a small cottage in Kintbury, Berkshire. “There was no running hot water and my mother had to cook on an oldfashioned range and there was no electric light,” she recalled. “Even worse … the piano had been sold before our move.” Eventually her father bought a replacement from a man in a pub. It had a silk front, painted with water lilies.
She was soon playing for village events organised by the vicar, who would sing Yes, We Have No Bananas with gusto. She also played the Warsaw Concerto for American servicemen while wearing a dress that her mother had made from parachute silk. Meanwhile, a local lady invited her to Bible classes at her large house; in it Patricia Carroll spotted two grand pianos on which she was permitted to practise.
On one occasion she fell into the Kennet canal and was saved by a man with a rake. Another time she broke her arm vaulting over a five-bar gate. Despite these mishaps her piano studies continued, as did her education at Newbury Girls’ School and, later, Beckenham Girls’ School. By 14 she was studying both piano and violin as an exhibitioner in the Royal College of Music’s junior department.
Moving to the senior college at 16, she took lessons with Arthur Alexander, who also taught her some German. She won the Chappell Gold Medal for her piano playing, which was presented by Princess Elizabeth, president of the College.
A French government scholarship took her to Paris to study with Marguerite Long, while a British Council scholarship took her to Vienna, where she played in the Mozart Saal. Back in London she made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1955, gave the first performance of Thea Musgrave’s second piano sonata at the Cheltenham Festival in 1956 and delivered many “terrifying” early morning radio broadcasts. “Artists had to turn up at 8am,” she recalled.
She returned to the junior department of the RCM in 1966, now as a teacher. However, when she went to see the registrar about working in the senior college he told her: “Your sex is against you.” That changed in the 1980s with the appointment of a new registrar and in 1997 she was made a fellow of the college. During her 37 years there she created the first course dedicated to the art of teaching music. One of her students was Sarah (now Dame Sarah) Connolly, the mezzo-soprano, who described how Patricia Carroll “was key in building up my confidence”.
As an adjudicator for music festivals Patricia Carroll travelled the world, hearing up to 1,500 young performers over three weeks in Hong Kong. “I was writing reports non-stop,” she recalled. In Ankara her Associated Board exams were disrupted by the thump of dancers rehearsing overhead, while on another occasion her car broke down in snow near Middlesbrough and when she arrived at the hall the windows were lined with young faces anxiously awaiting their examinations.
After coming across her greatgrandmother’s sheet music, Patricia Carroll became an enthusiastic collector of 19th-century manuscripts, scouring antique bookshops for old volumes. This led to invitations from Radio 3 programmes, some of which were broadcast on the World Service. Once she received a fan letter from a listener who owned a restaurant in Kenya and offered her a good meal if she visited.
By the end of the 1990s she was having problems with her right hand. Undaunted, she devised a programme for the left. However, her performing and teaching career was ending. In retirement she embarked on a History of Art degree with the Open University. When she graduated in 2003 her certificate was presented on the stage of the Festival Hall, on which she had performed more than 60 years earlier. She continued to study, latterly learning Ancient Greek and taking an MA at the age of 79. She was still playing piano the week that she died, including a daily prelude and fugue by Bach.
In 1959 Patricia Carroll married George Newman, an amateur violinist whom she had met during a concert at the Austrian Institute three years earlier. He had left Vienna with his mother before the war and became a music publisher. George, known as Hansi, survives her with their son and two daughters, one of whom, Helena Newman, is chairman of Sotheby’s Europe.
Patricia Carroll, born May 6 1932, died June 11 2017