Description
Throughout World War II, Dame Myra Hess, Britain’s greatest concert pianist, ran lunchtime concerts at London’s National Gallery. They became the stuff of legend, proving music’s power to support the human spirit in the darkest of times. This biography, the first in nearly five decades, follows Hess’s transformation from rebellious young musician into inimitably powerful woman and national heroine. She was born into a religious Jewish family in Victorian north London and studied at the Royal Academy of Music with the renowned pedagogue Tobias Matthay. Nevertheless, as a woman seeking to build a performing career before World War I, she faced a struggle for recognition. At home, a clash with her father led her to seek alternative ways of building a substitute family of friends.
Stardom ensued when she reached the US in 1922. Soon, with America at her feet from coast to coast, her beloved transcription of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring capturing public imagination, and British artistic luminaries, politicians and royalty flocking to her UK performances, Hess seemed unstoppable. During the war and through the National Gallery concerts, she became an unsung activist, helping refugee musicians from Nazi-occupied countries to find their feet in Britain and personally endeavouring to aid young British musicians faced with wartime deprivations.
Myra Hess – National Treasure offers previously unpublished extracts from her correspondence and postwar American tour diaries, full of insights into her collaborations with towering musicians of her day, including Arturo Toscanini, Pablo Casals, Bruno Walter and Kathleen Ferrier. Interviews with her former pupils shed light on Hess’s rigour, intensity and warmth, her dislike of recording and her special way of building her connection with her audience when on stage.
Hess encountered innumerable personal challenges nonetheless, including some disastrous medical misdiagnoses. A sociable woman who disliked being alone, she sacrificed her personal life in her determination to dedicate herself entirely to music. And though warm and giving, she did not hold back when faced with betrayal, cruelty or deception, or when others failed to meet the ferociously high standards she set for herself. Dame Myra Hess emerges at last from behind the myths: a unique personality full of generosity, courage, humour and sheer, unfailing ‘chutzpah’.
Contents
Author’s Note and Acknowledgements
Foreword by Stephen Kovacevich
Introduction by Nigel Hess
1. A London Jewish Childhood (1890-1902)
2. ‘Uncle Tobs’ (1903-1907)
3. The Importance of Being Earnest (1907-1910)
4. Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight (1910-1915)
5. The Great War (1914-1918)
6. Breakthrough (1918-1924)
7. ‘With the fire of life impassioned’ (1923-1933)
8. Striving Still to Truth Unknown (1931-1934)
9. The World Turns on its Dark Side (1934-1939)
10. ‘Admission: One Shilling’ – the National Gallery Concerts (1939-1940)
11. Against All Odds (1940-1945)
12. The Battle of Trafalgar Square (1945-1946)
13. New Beginnings (1946-1949)
14. Auntie Myra’s Diaries (1948-1952)
15. ‘No More Matzah Balls’ (1952-1959)
16. Studies with Dame Myra (1959-1965)
17. Final Years (1960-65)
Appendices:
Selected Bibliography
Primary Sources and Archives
Selected Discography
Indices
About the Author
Jessica Duchen is a music journalist, critic and author. She grew up in London and studied music at Jesus College, Cambridge, plus piano with Joan Havill. Her previous biographies have included books about Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Gabriel Fauré and the London Chamber Orchestra. Her work has appeared in the Sunday Times, the i paper, BBC Music Magazine and specialist periodicals such as Pianist and International Piano. In the 1990s she became the founding editor of Britain’s first independent piano magazine and subsequently wrote for The Independent for 12 years.
Among her novels on musical topics are Ghost Variations – the story of how the suppressed Schumann Violin Concerto was discovered – and Immortal, about Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved’. Alicia’s Gift, about a child prodigy pianist, was described by the Kanneh-Masons as ‘the book that inspired our family’. As a librettist, Jessica has worked extensively with the composer Roxanna Panufnik on the award-winning community opera Dalia, its predecessor Silver Birch, some large-scale choral works and a song cycle. She lives in London with her violinist husband and their cat.
Reviews
I loved reading this affectionate, elegant and informative biography of one of the greatest figures in British musical history.
Sir Stephen Hough
Myra Hess was not only a major artist and a riveting personality; she also lived through uniquely fascinating times. In this eminently readable biography, Jessica Duchen brilliantly evokes both a powerful and attractive character, and the eras she inhabited. A sympathetic and thoroughly researched study of a musical legend.
Steven Isserlis
An engrossing read bringing fresh perspectives on a remarkable musician and on the 20th century cultural backdrop from which she emerged.
Fiona Maddocks – Author and Music Critic
Packed with colourful anecdotes and musical insight, this biography is a tour-de-force, revealing the real Myra Hess beyond the myths
Tasmin Little
Jessica Duchen writes with a great depth of musical understanding and genuine empathy for the neglected National Treasure that is Myra Hess. At last here is the biography she so richly deserves as Jessica Duchen gives Myra Hess a concert platform for a new audience. It’s a terrific achievement. Surely Hess, who did so much in wartime London to bolster courage and culture by giving concerts at the National Gallery, should now be on the fourth plinth opposite the Gallery?
Anne Sebba – Author, presenter & lecturer
Jessica Duchen’s biography of Myra Hess restores to us a great pianist in all her complex glory, complete with her dedication, her struggles with nerves, her probing musicianship, her personal courage in the face of illness, her gift for friendship, and her sense of fun. A sympathetic, balanced and rounded portrait.
Susan Tomes – Pianist, writer and educator
Events
27 February 2025: City Music Society lunchtime concert and reception at which the author, Jessica Duchen, will talk about her new book. Ukranian-born pianist, Nikita Burzanitsa will play a programme of Beethoven, Skoryk, Brahms and of course, Dame Myra Hess’s famous arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.
1:00pm, St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London EC1A 9DS Entrance Free with a Retiring Collection
6 March 2025: As part of Jewish Book Week, join the author, Jessica Duchen, in conversation with Nigel Hess, Ivor Novello Award-winning composer and Dame Myra’s great-nephew, as they explore Dame Myra’s remarkable life.
8:30pm, Hall Two, Kings Place, London, N1 9AG. Book Tickets
