The music plays on in memory of Myra
Wartime concerts have inspired a new series of classical recitals, reports Nadine Wojakovski
DURING THE Second World War, the Luftwaffe battered London with wave after wave of bombs. Undeterred, the Jewish pianist Myra Hess played concerts to enraptured audiences every lunchtime.
On Wednesday 6 November 1940 she played Beethoven’s Piano Trio in C minor at the National Gallery. That autumn the bombings came on 56 out of 57 days between September and November. But nothing stopped Hess. Since she had started the series in October 1939, just a few weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War, her unwavering commitment resulted in almost 2000 concerts spanning the sixand-a-half-year duration of the war and well beyond.
Eighty years on, the classical music group the Nash Ensemble is presenting a celebration series in her honour, performing some of the pieces from the famous lunchtime war recitals that she organised, and in which she often performed.
The series has been created by the Nash Ensemble’s founder and artistic director Amelia Freedman. A great admirer of the famous pianist, she went to the British Library to select the most appropriate programmes for the series. When she researched the musical pieces during 2019 there was no sign of a global pandemic. By the time the programme started the pandemic was in full force, unexpectedly bearing comparison to the duress experienced in the War.
“I was a great admirer of Myra Hess and thought the lunchtime concerts gave so much solace to people who were having to endure hardship during the blitz,” says Freedman, 81, a member of Hendon United Synagogue.
Hess was born in 1890 to Jewish parents living in South Hampstead. An accomplished pianist of international repute, she was about to embark on her most extensive tour yet in the US when hostilities broke out. Instead, she decided to stay at home in the UK for the duration of the war.
“We are facing the annihilation of everything we hold important,” she wrote, “And this wonderful opportunity to give spiritual solace to those who are giving all to combat the evil seems, in some mysterious way, to have been given into my hands.”
She referred to the National Gallery concerts as her “national service”, seeing them as a way of satisfying the “hunger of the spirit” she sensed all around her in the early months of the war.
They were also an answer to another, more practical, problem: how the nation’s musicians could support their families after the closure of London’s concert halls and theatres. Moreover, the concerts satisfied a long-held ambition of hers to make classical music available to all — for just a shilling.
Working on the project was “an honour” for Freedman. A pianist and professional clarinet player herself, her passion for music is, as she puts it, “my life”. She fondly recalls her time as a teacher, taking pupils from Chorleywood College for blind children, to classical concerts. When studying at the Royal Academy of Music she regularly organised the students to play at chamber music concerts. This prompted her to set up the Nash Ensemble when she was just 24 years old, named after the Nash terraces around the Royal Academy of Music in central London.
“I had a talent for organising and encouraging my fellow students to take part in concerts, I was able to make them happen,” she recalls. “I was told The Nash Ensemble wouldn’t last more than six months. That was 57 years ago!”
The award-winning chamber music group prides itself on its musical diversity, performing with equal sensitivity and musicality works from the mainstream classical repertoire to contemporary and, particularly, new commissions. In its 50-plus years, the Nash Ensemble has commissioned more than 300 hundred works from 225-plus composers The ensemble has performed across the globe, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.
The Myra Hess celebration series
Hess’s National Gallery concerts were her ‘national service’ to satisfy the ‘hunger of spirit’ she saw
began at the National Gallery and then moved to the Wigmore Hall, where the chamber music group became resident ensemble in 2010. Freeman also devised a Terezín weekend of concerts, films and talks plus a children’s exhibition highlighting the artistic creativity of the inmates at Theresienstadt. She commissioned a special instrumental arrangement of the music from the children’s opera Brundibár, which was written by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása, who was murdered in Auschwitz in October 1944.
In the early years she played the clarinet in the ensemble, but soon realised that, if they wanted to become internationally successful, they would need an artistic director, which she then became. “Programming is a skill and it’s something I care about. I don’t just put pieces together, I make a kind of painting, with musical textures and colours.”
Her dedication to music has resulted in her receiving many honours, including a CBE in 2006 for her services to music. Among her appointments, she continues in her role as Artistic Director of the Bath Bachfest and Mozartfest. This year the Bachfest takes place 17-19 February, and all concerts will be live-streamed.
She set up the Ensemble in 1964, a year before Myra Hess died, aged 75. “I have great admiration for Myra in what she achieved during the War,” she says. “She gave pleasure to many people. She was not only a great pianist but a wonderful human being. She had tremendous principles and ideals. She really helped many people.”
Hess believed that music was one of the “greatest achievements of mankind”. She had the foresight to understand the healing power of music in response to the trauma of war. For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the people, King George VI created her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1941. “Once or twice bombs fell during the concert,” she said. “We never stopped, we just went on.” Now Freedman’s concerts have helped sustain people through the pandemic. She has been particularly grateful to the Wigmore Hall for livestreaming some of the concerts during the height of the pandemic, which has enabled the Nash to keep concerts going, giving much-needed healing power during these challenging times. Life, she says is all about “the joy of music-making”.
Once or twice bombs fell during the concert. We never stopped, we just went on