Eiluned Davies (1913-1999) was a British concert pianist and composer.
Eiluned Davies (1913-1999) was a British concert pianist and composer.
Born in Walthamstow, London, the daughter of Welsh bard Owen Davies of Llanarth, [1] Davies won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music at the age of 15 (1929-1933) where her teachers included Gordon Jacob, C H Kitson and Kathleen Long. She also took private piano lessons with Frida Kindler (1879–1964), a pupil of Busoni and the wife of composer Bernard van Dieren. [2]
Davies' first London piano recital took place in June 1936 at the Aeolian Hall, [1] [3] and her first radio broadcast followed in April 1937. [4]
During the war Davies performed at the National Gallery concerts organized by Myra Hess, [5] at which she gave the first performance in England of Shostakovich's Piano Sonata, Op. 12 (on 31 May 1943). [6] She also taught at the City Literary Institute (from 1945), the Mary Ward Centre (from 1956) and the Stanhope Institute, before retiring from teaching in 1979. [2]
Davies' compositions include choral, song and piano works, such as the Sociable Pieces for piano six hands, [7] Three European Folk Dances for piano, [8] a Requiem (1972, performed in Winchester, revised 1991) and the song cycle Glimpses (1993) for female vocal quartet. [2] All her pre-war compositions were withdrawn and destroyed. [9]
Davies' repertoire included Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Busoni and Bernard Stevens. Davies recorded the complete solo piano works of Bernard van Dieren for the British Music Society in the 1980s. She also championed Welsh composers, naming 'Y Pump Cymreig' (The Welsh Five) as Denis ApIvor, Daniel Jones, Mervyn Roberts, Grace Williams and David Wynne. [10] [11] [12] She premiered ApIvor's Piano Concerto, op. 13 in 1948 and Wynne's Piano Sonata No 2 in 1957. [13]
In the 1950s Davies' London address was Flat 2, 23 Coram Street, WC1. [14] She later moved to 40, The Limes Avenue, New Southgate. Her archive is held at the National Library of Wales. [15]
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was a sought-after keyboard instructor and a teacher of composition.
Dame Julia Myra Hess, was an English pianist best known for her performances of the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. She was one of the first American composers to succeed without the benefit of European training, and one of the most respected and acclaimed American composers of her era. As a pianist, she was acclaimed for concerts she gave featuring her own music in the United States and in Germany.
Denis ApIvor was a British composer, best known for his ballet score Blood Wedding. He had a parallel career as a consultant anaesthetist.
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.
Ruth Laredo was an American classical pianist.
David Wynne was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement.
Valerie Tryon, is an English classical pianist. Since 1971 she has resided in Canada, but continues to pursue an international performing and recording career, and spends a part of each year in her native Britain. Among her specialisms is the music of Franz Liszt, of which she has made a number of celebrated recordings. Currently 'Artist-in-Residence' at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Tryon is active as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, accompanist and adjudicator.
Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren was a Dutch composer, critic, author, and writer on music, much of whose working life was spent in England.
Marie Novello, also known as Marie Novello Williams was a Welsh pianist. She was one of Theodor Leschetizky's last students and performed in public from childhood. Her early death cut short a promising career just as she began to record for one of the major English labels, having already amassed a considerable discography for one of its second-rank competitors.
Norma Fisher is an English concert pianist and professor of piano living in London. Illness shortened her performing career in the 1990s and she turned instead to teaching.
This is a summary of 1958 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.
The Concert Allegro, Op. 46 by Sir Edward Elgar is a piece of music for solo piano. It takes about 10 minutes to perform. It is the only piano work he wrote that was designed for concert performance. It is in the key of C major and was written in 1901, at the request of the pianist Fanny Davies.
Kathleen Dale née Richards was an English composer, pianist, musicologist and translator. She used the name Kathleen Richards for her compositions, but from 1921 used her married name Kathleen Dale for recitals, broadcasts and authorship until the end of her life.
Carlo Grante is an Italian classical pianist. Born in L'Aquila and graduating from the National Academy of St Cecilia in Rome, he performs classical and contemporary classical music. His discography consists of more than 50 albums.
Trevor John Barnard is a British-born Australian pianist and teacher.
Barbara Nissman is an American pianist. She is especially known for her interpretations and performances of the works of Alberto Ginastera and Sergei Prokofiev which feature prominently in her repertoire. She is also a writer and a producer of a new DVD series, and a guest clinician presenting concerts, master classes and lectures world-wide.
Hai-Kyung Suh is a South Korean classical pianist living in New York. She is known for her rich, round tone, and singing voice-like phrasing, characteristics of the Romantic style of piano playing that was predominant in the Golden Age of pianism.
Mervyn Roberts, full name William Henry Mervyn Roberts, was a Welsh composer, best known for his piano music. Eiluned Davies regarded him as one of 'Y Pump Cymreig' along with Denis ApIvor, Daniel Jones, Grace Williams and David Wynne, all born in the first two decades of the 20th Century.
Frida Carola Johanetta Kindler was a Dutch concert pianist and teacher active in the UK, a pupil of Busoni and later the wife of composer Bernard van Dieren.