MARIA KORCHINSKA

A Sketch

1 CONTENTS

PREFACE

1. Early life

2. The Moscow Conservatoire

3. The Russian Revolution

4. Persimfans

5. Count Constantine Benckendorff

6. Settling in England: the pre-war years

7. The war

8. Post-war years

9. Harpweeks with Phia Berghout

10. Maria Korchinska and her pupils

NOTES

2 PREFACE

Maria Korchinska (1895-1979) was a celebrated never returned to Russia. The family settled in harpist who began her career in Russia before the England, where a son Alexander was born in 1925. first world war. She started her studies at the Moscow Maria went on to make a career in England and in the Conservatoire at the age of ten, after getting through international arena. She established a strong a fiercely competitive entrance exam. She was taught reputation as a soloist, as a chamber player, as an by Xenia Erdeli and then by Alexander Slepushkin, adjudicator at international harp events, and as an and graduated in 1911 with a gold medal, the first inspiring, if daunting teacher. ever awarded to a harpist. By the time she was Constantine Benckendorff was my great uncle fourteen she was busy performing, both within the (brother of my maternal grandmother). Both he and Conservatoire and outside. It was a golden time and Maria Korchinska were colourful figures of my youth, she played under the baton of such luminaries as and Cony (as he was known to family and friends) Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Ippolitov-Ivanov inspired me to take up the flute nearly 60 years ago. and also Debussy, who visited Russia and impressed her hugely. In addition she played in Koussevitsky’s I was prompted to draw up this sketch after seeing Moscow orchestra from its foundation in 1909 until some material relating to Maria Korchinska’s life and the revolution of 1917. She survived the rigours of work in her daughter Nathalie Brooke’s family papers. the revolutionary years, and during that period It revived memories and encouraged me to set the famously accompanied Chaliapin in performances for material down in a form that would be accessible to prisoners at the Cheka (security police) jail. A few descendants, to younger generations of harpists, and years later, in January 1924, she played with the perhaps to a wider audience. It is based on Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra at Lenin’s funeral. Korchinska’s reminiscence about her early years, a concert scrapbook that was kept during the 1920s, Her teacher Alexander Slepushkin died in 1918, and some information in published sources and on the she was appointed to replace him as professor of internet, photos from a variety of sources, and the harp at the Conservatoire, also taking over as oral testimony of ex-pupils and fellow musicians. I principal harp at the Bolshoi Theatre. She was only would like especially to thank my cousin Nathalie, and twenty two at the time, yet in the course of a few the former pupils and fellow musicians who spoke so years made a big impression as a pedagogue as well eloquently about their memories of Korchinska and as a performer, thus influencing the next generation helped in other ways to realise this project: in of Russian harpists. particular Karen Vaughan, Hilary Wilson, Sian Morgan In 1922 she became a founder member of Persimfans Thomas, Brian Davis, Hannah Francis, Isobel (First Symphonic Ensemble), the world’s first Frayling-Cork, Cy Payne, William Bennett and Rhuna conductor-less symphony orchestra. It was during Martin. I have incorporated part of the text of a Persimfans rehearsals that she met Count previously published piece about Cony’s musical Constantine Benckendorff (1880-1959). He was a activities, mainly drawn from his memoir Half a Life. keen amateur flute player who had joined the [1] Persimfans Board. They were married later that year, and a daughter Nathalie was born in September 1923. In 1924 Maria left for England on a concert Nick (Kolia) Lampert, March 2015 tour, together with her husband and daughter, and

3 Maria Korchinska’s 1962 recording of solo harp music, for which she selected: Handel, Pastorale , Theme and Variations; Glinka, Variations on a theme of Mozart; Prokofiev, Prelude in C; Hindemith, Sonata for Harp; Albert Roussel, Impromptu; Jesus Guridi, Viejo Zortzico; Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, Pastoral Variations on an Old Christmas Carol; Benjamin Britten, Interlude from A Ceremony of Carols

4 1. Early life you have Maria and Helen in your charge, report on them to me every three weeks.” We spent eight splendid months in Moldavia, freed Maria Korchinska found it difficult, she said, to speak from the iron discipline of Moscow. My grandmother about her own life, and she did not publish a memoir. had always sent us melons, corncobs, nuts and wine She did, however, begin to record some from her estates, but now to see her magnificent reminiscenses, getting as far as the ‘first chapter of kitchen garden was a joy. My mother’s sister (a very an autobiography’. This was set down in 1975 by beautiful woman) and her son (an extremely difficult Brian Davis, one of her pupils, and the following are boy) were staying with us. My aunt always wanted some extracts: me to look ‘nice’, in particular expecting me to comb ‘As a professional harpist, I had the pleasure of my hair twice a day; so …I cut it off. Of course I was making [a] long-playing record of harp music [in punished, but soon after I exacted my revenge. I 1962]; now when I think about my life, it seems like disappeared for a whole day into one of the several a very busy, very varied LP. huge baskets kept for storing the flour from the corncobs in winter. Everyone became most I was born in Moscow [in 1895] to a family of landed concerned, even casting anxious looks into the pond, gentry who had never taken part in the artistic world. which was very gratifying. When evening came I We were Polish by blood, but settled in Russia for emerged and was punished; but I did not mind—I four generations, and as a result completely Russified had had my revenge. in upbringing and outlook. My early life was dominated by my father, who was a quite exceptional …..My father came to visit us in Moldavia; I person. He had the strongest of wills, and held remember it was the first time I had seen him on extremely avant-garde ideas for his time. He felt it horseback. He was not so demanding at this stage, in was time people of his class should work fact quite kindly, but we had orders to return soon to professionally, so he gave away his inherited estate Moscow. So back we went, my sister and I... to his half-brother and took a post as lecturer in At our return my mother had twins, which meant two Mathematics and Engineering at Moscow University. more wet-nurses, many more screams and much Later on he combined this with a senior Civil Service more harassment. Meanwhile, the next stage in my post. father’s educational scheme began. I have been His first wife gave him a son, but died prematurely, asked, “Why are you a professional player?” The leaving him broken-hearted. When he was 42 he answer is, in my father’s words, “One has to be remarried; my future mother was twenty five and professional now.” He was convinced that after the came from the part of Moldavia then in southern next war that Russia lost we would all have to earn Russia, now in Romania. She was a typical late our living. So, in my seventh year, I embarked on a Victorian lady, with a genteel education. Her devotion demanding routine that included geography, drawing, to the Roman Catholic church contrasted with my sculpture, anatomy and the piano as well as the usual father’s atheism and liberal ideas, but he was the subjects. As for languages we spoke Polish as well as force that moulded us children. He conceived a Russian, in view of our ancestry. My father rigorous discipline for the six of us (the son he longed considered that we needed to know not the for arriving fifth) and being the eldest I bore the languages of our friends, French and English, but brunt of all my father’s ideas and experiments. those of our potential enemies; so I was set to learn German, and my sister was tutored in Japanese. We were stretched mentally and gymnastically from Again my father’s forecasts proved correct. The the start according to strict routines. As a result I Japanese war of 1905 gave us our first taste of could read and write before I was three, but I insecurity, and in 1914 we knew we had to work. dreaded the lessons because they were so demanding. Cold baths and exercises took care of the From the age of six until I was ten I studied for two physical side, designed to develop strength and hours every morning with my father, whose particular courage. But life was not wholly uncomfortable; my aim was to discover where the talents of his children father now being in charge of the Civil Service lay. He decided I was best at music so my work at department responsible for the roads and rivers of a the piano intensified, and I hated it. (The harp did vast area, we lived in an official residence which had not make an appearance until I was nine). As you can a huge garden. There we children played with others see, my education was of a quite unusual kind—a from the surrounding big houses with great mixture of Tolstoy and the Barrets of Wimpole Street. enjoyment. My mother was concerned about our [2] health, doubting that we could stand the strain of my I don’t remember ever being a child. From an early father’s regime, but since her life seemed to be age one was a person full of duties and confined to producing babies her influence did not responsibilities. We were not allowed to ring for extend beyond the nursery and its army of wet- servants to attend us; we had to learn to do nurses, whom I loathed. everything ourselves. Freedom and fun were very When I was six, my two nearest sisters died of scarlet occasional happenings, when we might run away and fever, so my surviving sister and I were sent to my play with other children in the garden or go skating, grandmother’s estate in Moldavia. My father’s parting although we had hardly any friends. For the most words to the nurse who accompanied us were, “Now part, life consisted of rigorous drilling.’

5 2. The Moscow Conservatoire I studied the harp with Madame Erdeli [1878-1971], an elegant dilettante, who was first harp at the At the age of ten Maria was sent to the Moscow Bolshoi. Conservatoire. This, she said, was a ‘wonderful release into freedom’ from an austere family life. ‘The Conservatoire was then at its height. Competition to enter was severe, and we were examined in piano and given aural and general intelligence tests. On that occasion 360 candidates applied, and I was the youngest of 40 accepted… I began by taking harp and piano both as first subjects. The great musicians of the day were there to teach us. We had to play once a month in front of all the other pupils; if we played well, then we had to perform in one of the public recitals held three or four times a year. The Xenia Erdeli theoretical side was thoroughly taught, with classes c. 1900 in harmony, instrumentation, form, composition and solfeggio. On the other hand ordinary academic lessons seemed poor, and were taken very lightly, although I continued to be taught at home by an endless series of tutors whom I loathed. I suppose really the Conservatoire course was not so bad in this respect now I look back. It was at least quite wide- ranging; I can remember having to write an essay on Lady Macbeth in my final literature exams.

Xenia Erdeli Memoir Arfa v Moei Zhizni (The Harp in My Life) (1967)

After three years Erdeli married a Guards officer and had to resign her position as ‘theatre people’ were not socially acceptable to the regiment.’ [3] At about that time my piano professor insisted that I should devote myself entirely to that instrument. I dreaded my parents’ decision, but luckily for me they insisted on the harp, as my father realised that there were far fewer harpists than pianists. Released to the harp alone, I was pressed very hard. I continued my studies with Alexander Slepushkin [1870-1918], who had been a Guards officer, the son of a banker. The bank had failed; out of a sense of Moscow Conservatoire honour the father had shot himself, and the son had Facade and Concert Hall to resign from his regiment. He took his harp to Moscos Berlin, and studied eight hours a day for six years My parents used to take me to the opera at the with Posse (1852-1925). Bolshoi Theatre, to improve my education. We saw and heard many famous artists but I dreaded the On his return to Moscow Slepushkin was appointed performances because of the inevitable murders and first harp at the Bolshoi and professor at the ghosts that occurred. I was fundamentally not Conservatoire. He was an extremely kind person. He devoted to music; I was interested in everything, taught me twice a week, and every other lesson I had particularly people. to present two new studies and a new piece. It certainly gave me an extended repertoire!

6 Wilhelm Posse Alexander Ivanovich (1852-1925) Slepushkin (1870-1918)

I loved life at that time. Although at first I had to travel to the Conservatoire with my governess, who delivered and collected me, the hours unsupervised by her were marvellous. Later on of course I travelled Serge alone, and by then I had made many friends, all Koussevitsky considered quite unsuitable by my family. Particular (1874 - 1951) friends were another harpist and her elder brother and sister, whose father, a singer, had cut his throat in front of his wife, tormented by the thought that he was losing his voice. I was the youngest pupil at the Conservatoire, and as so many of the singers asked me to play piano accompaniments for them before their lessons, I knew all the boys! By the time I was fourteen I was kept fully occupied with performing, both within the Conservatoire, and with permission, outside. At that period Koussevitsky On one occasion when [Koussevitsky] was conducting formed his own orchestra. He had been a double- a strange thing occurred. I can see him now as he bass player in the Bolshoi, married to a ballerina of approached the platform with his slow walk, his the corps de ballet. He taught at the Royal rather pompous manner, and his glittering eyes. The Philharmonic Scool (a private institution as opposed first piece was Liszt’s ‘Mephisto Waltz’. He took up his to the ‘state’ Conservatoire) where he met the baton, glared at each section in turn, then gave his daughter of the financial backer of the Kuznetsov tea imperative beat. At one point he gave me a very merchants. She was determined to marry emphatic one, but I, quite sure of myself, gestured Koussevitsky, so arranged matters by giving his wife ‘No!’, then came in at the right place. In the interval I ten thousand rubles. More of her fortune was used was summoned to his room. He looked me slowly up for Koussevitsky’s training abroad as a conductor. and down, then suddenly took my shoulder and said When he returned he was acclaimed, though he still ‘My friend, you were right!’ ‘I have never been submitted to constant coaching and advice. He drew overawed by people (by events, yes, but not people) great people such as Debussy to Moscow, and I so I replied simply ‘I knew I was right’. After that played for him all the time until the Revolution…’ there was no more to be said. But nowadays, if for instance Boulez were to give me as definite a cue, I In a BBC broadcast in 1965 [4], in which she would play! reminisced about her musical life, Maria Korchinska recalled: ‘Koussevitsky was a good musician but he I can remember Nikisch coming to conduct the became a good conductor while training his Conservatoire orchestra when I was fourteen or orchestra. Everyone was with him, Rachmaninov, fifteen. I was not very impressed, but then we were Scriabin, Glazunov and many stars from abroad… used to the talents of people like Ippolitov-Ivanov, Koussevitsky’s orchestra played all the first Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Glazunov, who indeed performances of Scriabin’s works—sometimes with as made it a golden age for the Conservatoire. One many as 20 rehearsals—Scriabin himself was always visitor who did make a great impression on me, standing by, which we called inspiring Koussevitsky. however, was Debussy. He arrived at about the time The results were wonderful and then I really did when I was coming to like music more deeply, and I enjoy music. This orchestra played all during the war can never forget his hands, beautiful, and so very and I also gave many concerts as a soloist during calm and great. that period.’

7 Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)

Artur Nikisch (1855-1922)

Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov Claude Debussy (1859-1935) (1862-1918)

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)

Sergei Rachmaninov Eugene Isaye (1873-1943) (1858-1931)

8 Another visitor was the Belgian violinist Eugene that the piece that involved me would be first in the Ysaye, and I was asked to play in the concert at the second half of the concert. During the first part of the Hall of the Nobility (now the Lenin Hall) where he was evening I was sitting among the audience happily to perform a concerto—was it Bruch? [5] Anyway the talking to my friends—not listening at all, as at that slow movement was scored just for violin, harp and time I was not interested in music. Suddenly one of organ. The rehearsal went without incident, and I felt them said, ‘Maria, aren’t you in this?’ I replied, ’What confident of the five pages of arpeggios that I had to are they playing?’ The order had been changed and it do. At the performance all went smoothly until, was my piece! So I rushed out of the hall, round the suddenly, at the second page of those arpeggios, all back, onto the platform, sat down and two bars later the lights in the building failed. If it were to happen came in with the harp entry. No one noticed in the now I would not be able go on, but then it was a orchestra, and the conductor did not look up, but in challenge, and I knew the passage by heart. Ysaye the interval I was summoned to the office of the continued, and so did the organist and I. At the last Directrice, Mme Goubert. ‘Are you mad?’ she began. chord all the lights miraculously came on, and there ‘I don’t know’, I replied unabashed. ‘What were you was pandemonium! The Russian audience, usually so doing? Why were you not there?’ she continued. I staid and undemonstrative, all stood up and howled explained. ‘Did you not listen to the announcement?’ for a repeat. she went on. ‘No’, I answered. She said she was now giving me the lowest mark for my behaviour, minus Later, when my Fräulein was waiting to take me three. I realised that was supposed to mean home, I understood an agent was making me some expulsion, but she said they would give me just one kind of offer. (In fact it was of a concert tour with more chance. I knew the threat was not real, but Ysaye). I declined and hurried home, not telling my even so did not report the matter at home. It was father, who would merely have assumed that I must never mentioned again, but it was a scandal have made an exhibition of myself. nonetheless. Behaviour on my part that was actually scandalous In 1911 I took my final exams at the Conservatoire by Conservatoire standards occurred when a German and was awarded the first gold medal ever given to a conductor came to conduct some of Wagner’s music. harpist. So ended a very happy six years. The rehearsal passed off well enough, and I was told

Graduates of Moscow Conservatoire 1911. Maria Korchinska is fourth from left back row, Ippolitov-Ivanov is seated second from right

Plaque with Moscow Conservatoire Gold Medal Winners

9 After graduation say the least and to get the week’s ration of a Red soldier was a fantastic fee. As we were many in our I valued the social life as much as the musical, and family this helped us a great deal to survive. now had boy-friends at each corner to walk me home—but no further. To have gone out with a boy The Red Army club was not without adventure. To would have been quite out of the question as far as begin with I had to go for an interview with a Cultural my parents were concerned. Even talking with men Commissar who asked what I did—I replied that I was considered wrong, and a rendezvous was played the harp. He looked at me very severely and decidedly dangerous, but one did manage. said: ‘Can you play drama?’, to which my reaction was to giggle but as I knew what it involved—sugar, When I arrived home after taking leave of the salt, bread, and even a pound of meat—I said, also Conservatoire my father greeted me with the speech: very seriously:’Yes, I can play drama and, if ‘I hope now you will come to your senses. Drop all necessary, even comedy.’ I got the job and a week your negative friends, and start working properly!’ I later dragged my harp on a sleigh five miles out into have never been prepared to drop friends, but I the suburbs of Moscow to the Red Army Club to play replied that I now wished to go to university. I had at their concert. had enough of the harp, and wanted to study to became either a doctor or a lawyer. My next appearance at the Red Army Club began with another interview with another Commissar. I I went to evening classes for Latin and Greek, as was marched off to the office and given a warning these had not been taught at the Conservatoire. I that I must explain what I was up to. The object that found them very difficult, as I am not a capable I’d left behind exploded and was dangerous. So I person with grammar. I also attended hospital wards undressed the harp and showed him that 19 strings and operating theatres, but could not take the sight had gone—there was no heat of any kind in Moscow of the injuries, so after a month I was asked not to at that time—and I broke the 20th to show him how come any more. All the time I continued playing, harmless the noise was. partly to pay for the classes—not that my parents could not or would not, but I was determined to be I survived in that club for two months. During that independent after all the discipline I had been time many friends were arrested so when I was subjected to. I went on to the university to study law, ordered to play in the CHEKA [state security] prison but before long the war came and playing became a with Chaliapin (1873-1938) I was delighted, hoping necessary means of livelihood; I could not manage to see someone I knew, and to be able to bring and both. receive messages. I went to play solos, and actually had to accompany Chaliapin because a piano could I never did drop my friends, as I have said, but my not be moved around the prison. We performed in father organised several diversions for me with this eleven corridors from 10am to 7pm and I did manage end in mind. He was invited to a conference in New to see a few friends. But the result was again an York lasting a week or ten days (I remember it was interview with a Commissar saying that if I talked to just six weeks after the Titanic disaster), and so he the prisoners again I might well remain amongst took me with him. For me it was a wonderful them. experience, but not without its dangers. Two of my father’s students accompanied us; one of them was a model of sobriety, but the other took a liking to me, so of course my father concluded I must have behaved questionably. Later my father took me to Italy, where trouble occurred when the official in charge of post restante letters began a flirtation with me. Then we went on a tour of some of the famous sights—followed by two men in a carriage. Back at the hotel I found a huge bouquet of red roses waiting for me. To avoid compromise I dropped it out of a fifth floor window. Finally an elderly man proposed to me. I was stunned, and horrified lest he should speak to my father, but luckily he did not. I decided I would never travel with my father again—it was too dangerous!’ [Here ends the ‘first chapter of an autobiography’]

3. The Revolution Maria Korchinska survived the rigours of the Russian revolution of 1917 and its aftermath, making resourceful use of her musical talents. ‘Belonging to the Arts’, she recalled in her 1965 BBC broadcast, ‘was a trump card in Soviet Russia and one had a right to exist. Apart from my Bolshoi and Fyodor Conservatoire work I performed in endless cultural— Chaliapin so-called—places and even in a Red Army club, which 1918 was very profitable as one was paid in rations. The food situation at that time in Russia was meagre to

10 I also played at Lenin’s funeral [in January 1924]. Lenin’s The whole orchestra of the Bolshoi was commanded lying in to appear at 6am on the day, our faces smeared with state in fat against the frost of 30 degrees, we stood for three the Pillar hours until we were marched into the large hall, once Hall, called the ‘Hall of the Nobility ’, where Lenin was House of lying in state. There we played the new National Unions, Anthem for hours. We were not paid for this (formerly performance, and as all musicians all over the world, Assembly thought this was not a good show. As a matter of fact of the the next statesman who died also had a state funeral Nobility) with the Bolshoi orchestra and they were paid that January time. Unfortunately I missed it.’ 1924

Professor of Harp at the Conservatoire and Principal Harp at the Bolshoi Theatre In 1918 Maria Korchinska’s teacher from the Conservatoire, Alexander Slepushkin, died and she was then appointed to his job as professor and head of harp, and also to his position as principal harpist with the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra. She clearly made a big impression as a teacher. Among her pupils (seen on the photo below) was Vera Dulova (1910- 2000), who was to be the most celebrated Soviet harpist of her generation. After an interval of 40 momentous years, she was to meet Dulova once more at the International Harpweeks in Holland (see Lenin’s funeral Red Square January 1924 below), and ‘I found, to my amazement, that they have not forgotten me.’

Maria Korchinska with her Moscow Conservatoire pupils. c.1922 Left to right back row: Sonya Korchinska (Maria’s sister), Dimitri Rogal-Levitsky, Natalya Sibor, Venyamin Kanishchev Left to right front row: Zinaida Smirnova, Maria Korchinskaya, Vera Dulova (to become the most celebrated Soviet harpist of her generation).

Signed by her pupils and inscribed ‘To our dear friend and teacher, with love’

11 4. Persimfans woodwind and brass formed a hollow square inside this circle, facing each other, with the percussion in a group in front of the double basses. Such a Early in 1922 Lev Moiseevich Zeitlin (1881-1952), a disposition was essential as it provided for all leaders noted violinist, inspired the formation of a and most of the players seeing each other, and at the cooperative called Persimfans (abbreviation of Pervyi same time not losing sight of Zeitlin—the leading first Simfonicheskii Ansambl (First Symphonic Ensemble). violin in the centre of the front segment upstage.’ [7] This was a radical experiment, the world’s first conductor-less symphony orchestra. Persimfans was democratic in spirit not just because it performed without a conductor, but also in reaching out to a wide audience, performing in factories and community centres as well as conventional concert halls. [6]

Lev Moiseevich Persimfans in the Great Hall of the Zeitlin Moscow Conservatoire

Maria Korchinska was a founder member of this The French composer and pianist Henri Gil-Marchex orchestra, and it was during one of the early (1894-1970), who performed with Persimfans, wrote rehearsals in 1922 that she met Count Constantine that ‘the utmost concentration and attention is Benckendorff (1880-1959), who was to become her demanded of each player, all of whom are fully husband. He was a keen amateur flute player who conscious of their responsibility in that magic acquired professional status during this period and circle…Each member of the orchestra has his own was another founder member. In his memoir Half a important part to play, and glances, raising of the Life he describes Zeitlin’s thinking as follows: brow, and slight motions of the shoulders... are done by each instrumentalist, but so discreetly that the ‘Having played under all well-known conductors, listener...seldom notices it." Zeitlin questioned the necessity of a body of experienced players being led by these gentlemen at In January 1927 Sergei Prokofiev appeared with the performance itself: he contended that a well- Persimfans in a program that included his Piano rehearsed orchestra, having got the hang of the Concerto No. 3, as well as his orchestral suites from eventual interpretation of a work at the rehearsals, Chout and The Love for Three Oranges. He was rarely could on the day not only do quite well without a quick to praise but commented: ’The conductorless conductor but even improve the final quality of the orchestra coped splendidly with difficult programmes performance. and accompanied soloists as competently as any His main argument ran thus: “Have you ever heard,” conducted orchestra’. ‘Their main difficulty’, he said he used to say “of a dramatic performance during later, ‘lay in changing tempo, for here the whole which the producer runs about and gives the actors ensemble had to feel the music in exactly the same continuous directions? This not only with regard to way. On the other hand, the difficult passages were the parts as spoken, but to the tempo and easily overcome, for each individual musician felt expressivity alike? Yet, where is the difference? himself a soloist and played with perfect precision.’ Actors learn their parts, are rehearsed by the [8] producer and then perform themselves. Why is it that musicians are not allowed to do the same? The more Zeitlin was not opposed to conductors in all so as they have the advantage of having their parts circumstances and some exceptions were made. Otto and therefore even need no prompter…”’ Klemperer was invited on one occasion to lead the ensemble. However, midway through the The idea of using a conductor for the rehearsals did programme, Klemperer laid down his baton and took not come off, and it was Zeitlin himself who a seat in the audience, and the orchestra finished ‘produced’ the show. His view was that such a new without him. [9] way of performing could be made to work for a symphony orchestra so long as you had more There was strong support for this project from many rehearsals than usual, and the players were placed in top Russian players, including principals from the such a way that all the principals and leaders could State theatre orchestras. The members worked very catch each other’s eye—as in chamber music. ‘To the hard to get the venture off the ground, and by all audience the orchestra presented an unusual sight: accounts they played to the highest standards, upstage the backs of all the first and second violins though at the cost of huge commitment in rehearsal were seen in a half-moon, while the sides of the circle time. The orchestra survived, more or less, until held the violas and cellos, with the double basses 1932, when it could no longer withstand a number of closing it backstage and facing the audience. The pressures ranged against it. [10]

12 described in his very engaging memoir (Half a Life. London: The Richards Press 1954). He wrote that he was from early boyhood an ‘untiring but very shy performer’, and that throughout the war his flutes never left him, no matter how daunting the surroundings. In 1915 he was posted to the far north, in the Arctic Circle, where he continued to play and ‘tried even to compete with the howling Arctic gales at Murmansk’. Cony was progressive in outlook, wanted to be of service to the new regime, and found employment with the Red Navy. But his aristocratic origins were against him and working within the Soviet government eventually proved impossible. At this point, in 1921, he started to explore a life in music, and this led to his involvement with Persimfans.

Persimfans concert 24 March 1924, with M.A. Korchinskaya (the Russian spelling, by contrast with the Polish version ‘Korchinska’)

5. Count Constantine Benckendorff Count Constantine Benckendorff (‘Cony’ [pronounced ‘Connie’] as he was known to relations and friends) was the scion of a well-known family of Imperial Russia. The Benckendorffs were Germans who had settled in Baltic territories (now Estonia and Latvia) in the Middle Ages. When these territories were Constantine Benckendorff’s membership card absorbed into the Russian empire at the end of the for ‘VSERABIS’ (‘All-Russian Union of Workers eighteenth century, the family adapted to the new in the Arts’) situation, became servants of the Russian state, and during the century that followed occupied high Cony was a member of the Persimfans Board and a positions in the military and in the diplomatic corps. player, though in his memoir he is duly modest about Cony’s father, Count Alexander Benckendorff, was the latter role. He had no previous experience of Russian ambassador in London from 1903 until his orchestral work and was, he says, ‘permitted to take death in 1917, the last in that position in Tsarist the part of third flute in those rare works where times. composers have included that number in their score, unmindful of W.A. Mozart’s opinion of the depressing effect such a prodigality of flutes has on the ears of the listener’. Even so he experienced some Constantine embarrassing moments. These included an occasion Benckendorff when the orchestra was rehearsing an excerpt from with his father Tristan: Count Alexander ‘The three flutes scored had just entered a long Benckendorff drawn chord in the lower register, of which I had the (Russian lowest note. The first violins facing us, with Zeitlin in Ambassador to the middle not a yard away, were playing a fast- Denmark 1897- moving figuration in the accompaniment, when I 1903) at the heard Zeitlin’s voice, muttering to himself, while piano continuing to scrape away busily on his own fiddle: Copenhagen “What a dreadful G flat. What a horrible G flat…” Of c.1900 course, the G flat was mine—my own ear had been warning me that this was so, but the confirmation by Zeitlin’s mutterings was too much for me and the triad had to carry on without it, Wagner or no Cony joined the Russian Navy in 1899 and fought in Wagner!’ the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–5, in the course of which he was taken prisoner. After his release he Cony survived such ‘small mortifications’, and went managed the family estate for several years, and on to gain further—and more successful—experience then once more served in the navy during the First in chamber music. He was delighted to be asked to World War. These events, the impact of the Russian understudy for Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and Revolution on his life, and his devotion to flute, are harp, and performed it without upset in front of ‘one

13 of the most exacting audiences imaginable, including 6. Settling in England: the pre-war years not only almost the entire staff of the Conservatoire, but every composer and writer on music then present In September 1924 Maria Korchinska left for England in Moscow.’ on a concert tour, together with her husband and one-year-old daughter Nathalie. The family never Other chamber music opportunities arose, in returned to Russia. They settled in England, where conjunction with the harp and other instruments, and Cony’s mother Sophie Benckendorff and his sister this began to satisfy a lifelong craving to get into Nathalie (married to Jasper Ridley) had remained closer touch with the musical world. following the death of Cony’s father in 1917. They lived at first in the Benckendorffs’ London house in Cony met Maria Korchinska at one of the early Gloucester Place, then in the village of Claydon in Persimfans rehearsals in 1922. It was indeed she who Suffolk, where Cony’s parents had bought a house had invited him to understudy for the Debussy (‘Lime Kiln’). Later Maria and Cony acquired a house sonata. They married in 1922, and a daughter in St Johns Wood in London, after which the family Nathalie was born in September 1923. [11] shared its time between London and Suffolk. A second child Alexander was born in Suffolk in July 1925. Maria and Cony became British subjects in 1929. Concert at the Small Hall, Later Maria Korchinska said of this radical change in Moscow her life: ‘I was not sorry to leave Russia when I did, Conservatoire, and my only real regret was in leaving the 9 May 1923, Conservatoire and my pupils.’ [12] Her great talents devoted mainly enabled her to go on to make a career in England, to pieces for starting with a number of recitals during the 1920s viola (Vadim which were very well received. During that period Borisovsky). Cony often performed alongside his wife, under the The programme adopted name ‘C. Kony’. He was evidently not in the included same league, but still quite an accomplished flute Debussy’s player, acting in a supporting role and sharing some Sonata for of the glory. Flute (K.A. Benckendorff), Concert programmes and reviews of these 1920s Viola (Vadim performances were kept in scrapbooks which have Borisovsky) survived. Some extracts from this collection are and harp included below. (Maria Korchinska)

Maria Korchinska in England 1925

14 The most prominent events were a number of recitals Debussy supplied the second group. If his Second at the Wigmore Hall, the first in December 1924. Arabesque was not originally written for harp, it should have been. ‘Claire de Lune’…also went well and sounded surprisingly luscious. Miss Korchinska obtained a rich ‘plummy’ tone in the lower tenor part (just above the point where the harp becomes feeble) which was particularly pleasing. The group was completed by the Sonata for flute, viola and harp..one of Debussy’s last works. It was admirably played…’

Wigmore Hall 2 December 1924 Programme included J.S.Bach, Prelude and Fuga, F minor; Scarlatti, Sonatas in B minor and G minor; J.S.Bach, Sonata for flute and cembalo, E flat major; Debussy, Second Arabesque, Clair de Lune, Sonata for flute, viola and harp; Glinka, Variations on a theme of Mozart; Glinka-Balakireff, L’Alouette; Chopin, Impromptu C sharp minor. Constantine Benckendorff The Daily Telegraph reviewer commented (3 c. 1925 December): ‘[MK] almost persuaded us at the Wigmore hall yesterday that the harp is a much- A second Wigmore Hall recital followed in January maligned instrument, and she certainly went very 1925, assisted this time by the Russian soprano near to prove that it knows no limitations. This was Tatiana Makushina as well as C. Kony (flute) and partly due to the admirably-designed programme and Raymond Jeremy (viola). This too was generally well- partly to the very remarkable skill of the received. performer…The surprise of hearing familiar pianoforte music, such as Debussy’s Clair de Lune or Chopin’s Impromptu in C sharp minor played on the harp with the greatest ease was such as to prevent any damaging comparison. ..Miss Korchinska was assisted by Mr C.Kony (flautist) and Mr. Raymond Jeremy (violist). Together they gave a finished reading of Debussy’s Second Sonata (for flute, viola and harp)…’ In similar vein the Times reviewer (5 December) wrote: ‘The harp is not usually an interesting solo instrument. One has often felt that it should be confined to the orchestra, or to the drawing rooms of the Count Almavivas of this world, who may find it an elegant pastime adapted equally to the display of pretty arms and to the accompaniment of amateur vocalists. But such opinion was reversed by the performances of Miss Marie Korchinska at the Wigmore Hall…She displayed a remarkable virtuosity and a command of more tone colours than we usually get from what is apt to be a monotonous instrument. The surprising thing was how well the early classics sounded... the two sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti Wigmore Hall 28 January 1925 and the Sonata for flute and cembalo in E flat by Programme included Mozart, Sonata in F major; Bach, on the whole, went much better on the harp Chopin, Nocturne in B flat minor, Valse in F minor; than on the modern grand pianoforte. The part- Liszt, Liebestarum; Ethyl Smyth, Three Songs with writing was brought out with greater clearness, and Chamber Music accompaniment arranged by the in the last-named work a far better blending of the composer for flute, viola and harp; Arnold Bax, two instruments was obtained than when a pianoforte Elegiac Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp; Debussy, is used. Arabesque no.2, La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin; Roussel, Impromptu for Harp, Op.21

15 There was a third Wigmore performance in May 1925, The Times review (12 May) was again very ‘assisted by C.Kony and Chamber Orchestra’ (cond. complimentary about Korchinska, though other Charles Williams). contributions suffered from unfavourable comparison: ’There is little doubt about her mastery of the Wigmore Hall instrument; the neatness of the phrasing in Mozart’s 8 May 1925 concerto showed that, and the easy transition from Programme one tone quality to another and the absence of included Mozart, excessive resonance secured by deft damping. We Concerto in C for should have been glad to hear more of her playing Flute and Harp; alone…For to say the truth neither the flute obligato Debussy, Dances (Mr. Kony) nor the conducting were at all at the same for Harp and String level in point of artistry.’ Orchestra; André Caplet, Masque of Meanwhile the Daily Telegrpah reviewer (11 May) the Red Death for said : ‘On more than one recent occasion Miss Marie Harp and String Korchinska has shown uncommon ingenuity in Quartet; Ravel, overcoming the obvious difficulties that lie in the path Introduction and of anyone who tries to draw up a consistently Allegro for Harp interesting programme of harp music. To no small with extent she succeeded again where other harpists accompaniment of have failed in this connection at the recital she gave flute, clarinet and at the Wigmore Hall, with the cooperation of Mr.C. String Quartet, Kony (flute), and a chamber orchestra conducted by Mr Charles Williams’ though ‘too often one was made Korchinska’s playing at this concert particularly conscious of a want of proper coordination, possibly impressed Marie Goossens, sister of Eugene ascribable to insufficient rehearsing, between the (conductor and composer), Leon (oboist) and Sidonie players. Debussy’s two dances—sacred and profane— (harpist). fared better on the whole, and gave Miss Korchinska fuller scope for displaying her unquestionable skill Marie Goossens recalled:‘I was first introduced to and technical resources.’ [Maria Korchinska]...soon after her arrival in England with husband Count Benckendorff and baby daughter, A fourth Wigmore performance on 11th December Nathalie; her son was not yet born. My husband and 1925, again ‘assisted by C. Kony’, included: Saint- I, together with my parents, were invited to a Saëns, Fantaisie pour Harpe; Pierné Impromptu— reception in honour of Maria Korchinska and George Caprice pour la Harpe; Faure Impromptu pour la Gershwin (who was here on a visit). Little did I guess Harpe, ‘Une Châtelaine en sa tour’; Fl Schmitt, Deux that Maria would become one of our closest friends in Pieces pour Harpe Chromatique; D.E. Inghelbrecht the harp world. Sonatine pour Flute et Harpe; A.Caplet Divertissements pour la Harpe. It was arranged for us to attend her concert at the Wigmore Hall. Amongst other works accompanied by a chamber orchestra in which her husband played the flute, was ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ by André Caplet. I was amazed to see that Maria played this extremely difficult work without music…’ [13]

The Times reviewer (14 December) was unconvinced about the virtues of the harp as a solo instrument, but ‘We certainly heard the instrument at its best...for [Miss Marie Korchinska] has a complete Goossens family: (left to right) Sidonie mastery over all the technical possibilities of the Goossens (harpist 1899-2004), Eugene harp, and produces an astonishing variety of Goossens (father) (conductor and violinist colour....’ 1867-1958), Sir Eugene Goossens (composer and conductor 1893-1962), Leon Goossens Further Wigmore recitals followed: in January 1926, (oboist 1897-1988), Marie Goossens (harpist with C. Kony (flute), Raymond Jeremy (viola) and 1894-1991) David Sisserman (cello): Purcell, Suite for

16 Harpsichord; Rameau, Pièces avec une Flute et un Violin and Harp with String accompaniment; A.Bax, Violoncelle; Rameau, Suite de Pièces pour Clavecin; Sonata in Four linked movements for Viola and Harp A. Shaposhnikoff, Sonate pour Flute et Harpe; (first performance); Schubert, Quartet for Flute, Prokofiev, Pièces pour Harpe; A.Kankazovich, La Guitar, Viola and Cello] Polka; L.Rohozinsky, Suite Brève pour Flute, Alto et Harpe], and in January 1927, with C. Kony (flute) and Ambrose Gauntlett (cello): Bach, Partita in B flat major; Sem Dresden, Sonata for Flute and Harp; Mozart, Sonata in C major (K.330); Andre Caplet, Divertissements pour la Harpe; A.Roussel, Impromptu pour Harpe; Haydn, Trio in D major for Flute, Cello and Harpsichord. The reviews of these concerts were mixed, but this was much more to do The Harp with the quality of the repertoire than the quality of Ensemble the harp playing, judged to be consistently brilliant. Grotrian Hall Alongside these prestigious events were many other 10 June 1927 performances in a variety of settings. They included a concert for the London Flute Society in February 1925 featuring ensemble flute pieces, pieces for flute and harp pieces, and harp solos. On this occasion ‘M. C. Kony’ earned high praise for his ‘splendid control’ and ‘admirable phrasing’ in a Bach sonata, Soon after arriving in England Maria and Cony met while Mme Korchinska had ‘perfect mastery over her Arnold Bax, who became a good friend. Bax was instrument, and can obtain from it every nuance that greatly impressed by Maria’s playing and his Fantasy she wills. When that is said of a harp player it is high for Viola and Harp, composed in 1927, was dedicated praise indeed, for of all instruments the harp to her—a piece which, she said, ‘makes us all work demands the most complete servitude from the very hard at our technique’. The first performance performer.’ (Daily Telegraph 9 February 1925) was with Raymond Jeremy (viola) at the Wigmore Hall in October 1927, in a concert devoted to Bax’s Other performances included a concert at Ipswish Art recent chamber music. Club in October 1925 (Korchinska was ‘at once realised as a great artist’ and ‘the flute playing was excellent, noticeable for facile technique [and] the utmost variation of tone’, while ‘the general effect was greatly enhanced by the mutual understanding Wigmore between the players’ (East Anglian Daily Times 5 Hall concert October 1925). There were recitals at country houses programme (Grovely Manor, Boscombe [May 1925]; Drill Hall, 20 October Taunton; Knights Hayes Court, Tiverton; Dunster 1927 Castle [all November 1925]; Ogston Hall [December including 1925]); at music clubs and societies (St John’s Wood first and Hampstead [March 1926], St Martin in the Fields performance [June 1926 and November 1926]; Swansea Chamber of Bax’s Music Society [December 1926]), and charitable Fantasy performances at the Central hall, Westminster Sonata for [February 1925], in Torquay (Torquay Pavilion) Viola and [February 1926] and Exeter (Barnfield Hall) Harp [February 1926]. This is a very partial list. After the first few years in England, the emphasis of Maria Korchinska’s concerts shifted more strongly to ensemble music. She had made a great impression as a solo performer, but as she herself was to say The reviewer in the Manchester Guardian wrote : ‘The later: ‘Fundamentally I consider [the harp] an Wigmore Hall was crowded with distinguished people orchestral and chamber music instrument, having last night, when an important concert of chamber virtually no [solo] repertoire.’ [BBC programme music by Arnold Bax was given, and one was 1965] especially glad to see several of the foremost creative The Harp Ensemble, comprising Maria Korchinska musicians honouring their fellow-composer with their (harp), C. Kony (flute), Sybil Eaton (1st violin), Stella presence....Four of Arnold Bax’s recent chamber Pattenden (2nd violin), Raymond Jeremy (viola), works built up a long and mentally exacting but Valentine Orde (cello) was established and first admirably devised programme....the new fantasy-- performed at the Grotrian Hall in April 1926 Sonata for Viola and Harp... is written with a [D.G.Mason, Three Pieces for Flute, Harp and String complete grasp of [this]medium...Mr Raymond Quartet; A.Bax, Quintet for Strings and Harp; Jeremy and Mme Maria Korchinska played it Debussy, Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp; A.Roussel, exquisitely. The latter has a rare gift of rhythm to Serenade for Flute, Violin, Cello and Harp]. Further bring to the playing of the most anti-rhythmical of Harp Ensemble concerts were given in October 1926 instruments, and her harp technique is finished to the for Ipswich Chamber Music Society and in June 1927 last degree of virtuosity.’ (22 October 1927) at the Grotrian Hall [D.E. Inghelbrecht, Quintet for String Quartet and Harp; Vivaldi-Bax, Concerto for

17 After the concert Bax wrote an enthusiastic letter to 7. The War Maria, preserved in the Korchinska scrapbooks of the 1920s: Maria Korchinska remembered the war period with some affection. She said in her BBC broadcast: ‘Then Dearest Maria came the war and again many experiences that I am I must send you a line glad to have had and always remember as a privilege to thank you for your for a foreigner. I played for the BBC in Bristol and remarkable playing other places, for CEMA [Council for the last night. It could not Encouragement of Music and the Arts] and for ENSA have been better, as [ Entertainments National Service Association]. I it seems to me. I played in underground caves near Lewes, where a think this concert may possibly have helped piano could not survive the damp. I played in you personally to cathedrals and clubs and YMCAs and several times in some extent, as the secret camps and aerodromes, without having the composers in the au- faintest idea of where I was. My life was spent in the dience were aston- black-out trying to find my way. I was lucky I never ished and said thy missed one engagement in spite of all the difficulties could never have im- in transporting the harp. Several times I was given agined the harp up but arrived with my instrument at the last played with such rhythm--Quite true! moment, very hot and scared because of the Love to Kony and bombing, but able to play.’ [15] yourself The war saw the appearance of an outstanding new From Arnold work which Maria Korchinska very much admired: Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, scored for three-part treble chorus and harp. It was written in 1942 while Britten was at sea, en route from the United States to England. The first complete performance was given in December 1943 at the Wigmore Hall, with Korchinska and the Morrison Boys Choir (Ivor Sims Choir Master), conducted by the composer. The first recording was made with the same forces. It is likely that Britten had Korchinska in mind for the piece, since he had been aware of her for several years and had been very impressed by her playing for the 1936 film Night Mail, for which Britten wrote the music. [16]

Arnold Bax

In 1928 Bax also composed a Sonatina for Flute and Harp (later recast as a septet for for flute, oboe, harp, and string quartet), dedicated ‘To Count K. Benckendorff’. This was premiered by Maria and Cony in Ipswich Central Library in January 1929. Korchinska played with a variety of chamber ensembles in the 1920s and 30s, including the Harp Ensemble and the Griller Quartet, with whom she toured to Germany in 1931-32.

Notice for a concert in Reissue of first Berlin with recording of Britten’s A the Griller Ceremony of Carols Quartet 1943 (Sidney Griller 1st violin, Jack O’Brian 2nd violin, Philip Burton viola, Colin Hampton violoncello)

18 8. Post-war years ‘After the war’, Maria Korchinska continued in her 1965 BBC broadcast, ‘ my musical life became more orderly and interesting again. Musical clubs began to function and I played a lot of chamber music.’ The most notable of the chamber groups was the Wigmore Ensemble, founded in 1948 by the flautist Geoffrey Gilbert (1914-1989). This brought together Maria the outstanding woodwind players of his generation, Korchinska c. including Jack Brymer (clarinet), Terence MacDonagh 1944 (oboe) and Gwydion Brooke (bassoon), and Dennis Brain (horn) also frequently participated. In addition there was a Harp Quintet of the Wigmore Ensemble which included Maria Korchinska, Geoffrey Gilbert, David Wise (violin), Frederick Riddle (viola) and William Pleeth (cello).

Korchinska evidently got on well with Britten. Following the recording of the Carols , she visited him Notice for a in Aldeburgh and received the postcard below: Concert of the Harp Quintet, Wigmore Ensemble (Maria Korchinska (harp), Geoffrey Gilbert (flute), David Wise (violin), Frederick Riddle (viola), William Pleeth (cello)

The Ensemble had a large repertoire of pieces that included harp. Maria played regularly with them, travelled with the Ensemble to France and Spain and on several occasions to Ireland. ‘Our programmes’, she said, were ‘mostly of the Third Programme variety [and] extremely interesting’. She also played Postcard dated 29 June 1944 Thank you for your sweet letter. We loved having at the Edinburgh Festival, both as soloist and with the you here, and you must come back again soon. I am Ensemble. just back here again after a hectic time in London and around--I do hope you have escaped damage, and can get some sleep! The Carol proofs are ready, but I haven’t yet heard them. Much love to you. Ben

After the war, however, the relationship soured. This arose from Korchinska’s critical attitude towards Britten’s conscientious objection, which she did not hide and which he minded greatly. [17] Britten and Pears had applied for recognition as conscientious objectors after their return from America in 1942, yet the relationship with Maria was still very cordial in 1944, as the communication above shows. Some new consideration must therefore have come into play. Whatever the case, the personal contact with Britten was lost.

Wigmore Ensemble in Spain 1957 Including in front left to right: Jack Brymer, Maria Korchinska and Geoffrey Gilbert

19 In addition to her experience with Geoffery Gilbert Another fellow player was the cellist Rhuna Martin, and the Wigmore Ensemble, Korchinska performed Wibb’s first wife, who met Korchinska when playing with other leading flute players of the time, including for the Northern Sinfonia (the first permanent John Francis, Richard Adeney, and William Bennett, chamber orchestra in Britain, founded in 1958 and who had been taught by Geoffrey Gilbert. based in Newcastle on Tyne). Rhuna Martin greatly admired her and said : ‘I have such lovely memories William Bennett (known to all as Wibb) went to study of Maria, with whom I palled up in the Northern in Paris in 1958, and on his return to Britain played Sinfonia days. She was such a character, and with for two years with the BBC Northern Orchestra, then the most elegant legs, which were always very much in 1961 joined Sadlers Wells. (later English National on display. She used to do a number each month for Opera) the TV programme, with three or four jazzers, who were very uncool, a bit yobbish but they adored Wibb used to hear Korchinska regularly on the radio. Maria and kept her supplied with endless cups of tea. He first encountered her when she came to play a French concerto with the BBC Northern, and later, in She was very disappointed in me when I decided to 1962-63, they both played in the English Opera marry Wibb, as she said she thought I was an Group orchestra for a production of Britten’s opera intelligent woman who would know marriage was Turn of the Screw. He also joined her for a only for fools, and especially marriage to a flautist. performance of the Debussy sonata for flute, viola She said all the high notes rotted their brains. This and harp, for a radio broadcast, and remembers she knew because she had married one!!!’ [20] several visits to her house in Greville Road to rehearse. He recalls that she knew this piece inside out, and that she was very demanding about rhythm. Glyndebourne Some years later she was invited to play with the For three seasons (1962, 1963, 1964) Korchinska BBC Vesuvius Ensemble, of which Bennett was a performed at Glyndebourne under Raymond Leppard member, for a concert which included Stravinsky’s in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, which was Songs for Voice, Flute, Harp and Guitar. While subsequently recorded. This was the first fully rehearsing at Maida Vale Studios Korchinska ‘threw a professional production of ‘Poppea’, some 280 years wobbly’ because of the guitarist, with the result that after its first performance. In An Anthology of Critical the item was withdrawn from the programme. Later and Personal Writings, Raymond Leppard included that morning she explained to Wibb that the guitarist the following vivid description: had no sense of rhythm and that it was no good trying to correct it! ‘The question was then raised whether I would conduct or play in the performances and, since John Generally, Wibb thought, her musical observations Pritchard was keen about the piece, I agreed that it were valid, and he liked her--she was fun. However was better that he should conduct and I play the first it had to be said that ‘the Countess’, as she was often harpsichord. At that time nobody had worked out known, could be imperious. When she came to play how to direct successfully the recitative-music that the French concerto with the Northern Sinfonia, her accounted for about half the opera and was to be harp was brought from the train. They started accompanied, as in Monteverdi’s day, by a large rehearsing and the instrument was terribly out of group of free-playing instruments—organs, harp, tune, at which point Korchinska in effect commanded lutes, chittarones and harpsichords. Their the orchestra harpist to tune it. Geoffrey Gilbert told coordination with the stage within the limits of Wibb that he had similar experiences and that he twentieth-century rehearsal conditions gave many would himself sometimes step in to do the tuning! problems which the normal skills of beating time [19] would not resolve. The memories of that distinguished harpist, Maria Korchinska, who was quite unused to this uncountable music, in frenzied and totally committed lunges at her instrument in order to keep with John or singer, will remain with me for ever. I sat immediately behind her in the pit. She loved the music and the part I had written had no technical worries for her. It was the controlled freedom of it all that caused the agitation. She wore her hair in a roll around her head and, by the end of each performance, she looked like some handsome Kentucky farmer’s wife after a long day plucking turkeys; hair everywhere, but shining with a glow of achievement. Eventually she gave me a beautiful silver box she had brought with her from Russia Recording c.1962 because she had enjoyed the performances so much.’ Oxford Nursery Song Book, arr. [21] Richard Rodney Bennett Dorothy Dorow (soprano), John Carol Case (baritone), Maria Korchinska (harp), Thea King (clarinet), William Bennet (flute)

20 Portrait of Maria Korchinska by John Ward 1959

Session playing on the wider music scene

In addition to her work as a soloist and with classical orchestras, Maria Korchinska also performed for light music recordings, films and broadcasts. This was, as she said in her 1965 BBC programme, essential in order to make a living, but she enjoyed a range of musical genres and, without doubt, put her heart into it.

One of the music directors with whom she played as a session musician was Cy Payne. Cy Payne, now a vigorous 80 and still hard at it, began his working life Cy Payne at the age of 15 as a music arranger for music c.1980 publishers in London, and went on to a prolific career as arranger, composer and music director for many musicians could fill all their time with this sort of television and radio shows, films and recordings—a work if they wished. It was also pretty well paid. career spanning 65 years. [22] Typically a session was 3 hours, and a day’s recording would include three sessions, morning, Korchinska worked with Cy Payne periodically over a afternoon and evening. This was a world which has period of about five years during the 1960s and now mostly disappeared, largely for technological 1970s, when he was recording and conducting his reasons (you can, for example, create whole own arrangements, for LPs, or film music, or for orchestral effects with an electronic keyboard and broadcasts. He has good memories of her. He found computer). At one stage London boasted thirty her always very helpful and appreciated, as well as recording studies, now there are only three, and her excellent playing, her ‘wonderful open mind’. He perhaps 60-70 session musicians involved in this also remembers her laughter. sphere of music in the London area. But in the 1950s, 60s and 70s the recording world was thriving This was a period when a huge amount of recording and with its help Korchinska was able vitally to was going on, with 600-700 musicians in and around supplement her income and support her family, as London available for session playing of this kind. well as extend the range of her musical experience. There was so much happening, Cy says, that

21 9. Harpweeks with Phia Berghout desire: to became a great artist. ..we of the older generation…have a duty to help whenever it is In September 1959 Korchinska was invited to take possible. We have to prepare these people for their part as an adjudicator in the first International Harp task and for a life that is far from easy.’ Contest in Israel, where ‘I met and heard most of the leading harpists of my generation and younger ones too… [which] gave me a very good insight into the harp world of today’. [23]

It was at the 1959 competition that she met Phia Berghout (1909-1993), the then leading Dutch harpist, principal harp with the Concertgebouw since 1945. This was to become one of the most important associations of her life.

Phia Berghout had become aware of the lack of personal support given to young and emerging musicians and developed a scheme whereby they could meet to discuss common problems and share their ideas. In the summer of 1954 the first of a number of residential courses for Dutch harpists was held in Valkenswaard. This included, for example, discussions about the problems of modern orchestral playing, lectures on technique and tone, and the opportunity for students to play their chosen repertoire and to get personal and constructive feedback.

Phia Berghout’s project was warmly supported by Eduard van Beinum, principal conductor of the Concertgebouw and a very important figure in Phia Berghout in the grounds of Queekhoven Berghout’s life. In April 1959 Van Beinum died suddenly of a heart attack while rehearsing the orchestra. She resolved then to set up a Foundation in his name (it was formally established in November 1960), in order to take further the idea of residential courses for young musicians and harpists in particular, and these plans were reinforced by her experience at the first International Harp Contest in Israel, where many young players, who considered themselves virtuosi in their own countries, became disillusioned when they heard other competitors.

Thus emerged the plan for ‘International Harpweeks’, greatly energised by the relationship between Berghout and Korchinska, who got on very well. In the words of Berghout’s niece: ‘Phia asked Maria to come to Holland to help her with the artistic leadership of the harp weeks. Between them an extraordinary friendship started to grow. They were a sort of ‘double act’…Phia was calm and encouraging while Maria was outspoken and mischievous!’ [24]

The first Harpweeks, 1960-1963, took place in Bentveld, under the artistic leadership of Phia Berghout and Maria Korchinska. Then the Foundation bought Queekhoven, a 17th century estate on the Vecht waterway, which became the site of a broader International Music Centre, starting in 1964. About eight study weeks were organised in a season, and the harp week recurring annually with Korchinska’s close participation.

The intention was for Queekhoven to become a symbol for young musicians who, in Berghout’s words, ‘can have contact with others from different countries who have also chosen music as their profession. They can learn from each other, discuss Maria Korchinska and Phia Berghout their illusions, their disappointments, their problems 1960 and their fears about not achieving their innermost

22 Bentveld 1962Bentveld

23 Maria Korchinska delighted in her association with and told us of their work and their professional lives Phia Berghout, and in January 1965 wrote thus about behind the Iron Curtain. They also said they were the experience of the first five years: supremely happy during Harp Week and very interested—both sides have plans for more contact in ‘For five consecutive years I have had the great the future. For me personally it was also very honour and pleasure of assisting Mme Phia Berghout gratifying—as I saw my old school going on as with her Harp Week in Holland and therefore am strongly as ever. With all their possibilities and a very writing this article to describe the work done there. active and vital approach they certainly have a very But before beginning it must be known that only a big harp world of their own. And my vanity was woman with her personality could achieve what she flattered—they have not forgotten me after nearly has in the harp world. Apart from being a first-class half a century. harpist herself, and a teacher by vocation, she is also a brilliant organiser with great imagination. In The last Harp Week was also marked by the signal consequence all the five Harp Weeks were quite honour of a visit from leading Soviet composers and different and extremely rewarding for all who executants. The Soviet Ambassador to Holland attended and who are interested in our instrument. brought Khachaturian and his wife Makarova, also a The atmosphere in which we work is easy, very composer, and Rostropovich, the great cellist, to visit human and great fun too. We all feel rather elated, the Centre. They expressed great interest and greatly interested in each other, and learn admiration for all Mme Berghout was doing for her enormously from each other through playing instrument and obviously enjoyed being entertained (everyone plays a programme at every level), talking by us. and discussing every detail. The most important factor in all this, to my mind, is that there is no To conclude. I would like to express my gratitude and competition. The young harpists play and their thanks to Mme Berghout for creating such a very playing is discussed, necessary advice proferred and, important Harp Centre—we are already all benefitting in quite a few cases, the results are already from it!’ [25] wonderful—very good players made from rather shocking ones.

And for us, the older generation, the Harp Week is indeed very helpful—one learns a tremendous amount for one’s pupils and for oneself.

Another benefit is hearing and watching different schools of harp playing when the great players come. The last two Harp Weeks were especially interesting in this respect. Marcel Grandjany came and, being a wonderful person as well as the greatest living harpist, taught us a great deal and also one of the most important things too—how modest and humble one should be in our profession—he has that quality which only great people have.’

Vera Dulova, Aram Khatchaturian and Maria Korchinska, Queekhoven 1964

Marcel Grandjany (1891–1975) with Maria Korchinska and other participants, Harpweek Bentveld 1963

MK continued: ‘The last Harp Week [1964] was exciting in every way. Mme Berghout managed to get two Russian harpists to come and stay with us. Vera Dulova, the leading harpist in Russia, and Emilia Left to Right: Rosa Bacells, Maria Korchinska, Moskvitina, her best pupil and now a member of the Phia Berghout, Vera Dulova, Queekhoven 1964 Symphony Orchestra of Moscow. They played for us

24 Maria Korchinska and Vera Dulova, Moscow Left to Right: Aram Khachaturian, Inga Graae, 1924 (detail from photo on p. 11) Mstislav Rostropovich, Maria Korchinska Queekhoven 1964

Korchinska’s meeting in 1964 with her former pupil Vera Dulova, after an interval of forty years--forty years of momentous historical change--must have been an extraordinary moment. Dulova (1909-2000) studied with Korchinska in Moscow for two years (1922-1924). She began her training with Xenia Erdeli, but in 1922 heard Korchinska playing Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915) and Ravels’s Introduction and Allegro (1905), and was so impressed that she asked permission to change teachers. After graduation she continued her studies in Berlin, then in 1932 was appointed to the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra and was solo harpist there for most of her professional life. She also taught generations of harpists at the Moscow Conservatoire (including, notably, Natalya Shameyeva) [26] Maria Korchinska and Vera Dulova Queekhoven c. 1970

The first meeting in 1964 was followed by further encounters with Dulova and other Russian players in Queekhoven in subsequent Harp Weeks, which were eagerly awaited. Karen Vaughan, who studied with Korchinska in the early 1970s , attended in 1971 and recalled:

‘She was excited at the prospect of seeing her old student Vera Dulova again, and we waited with some trepidation to see whether the Soviet authorities of the day would grant visas to the Russians. All went well and Mme Dulova arrived with two of her students from the Moscow Conservatoire [who] played with brilliance and passion over the course of the week...’ [27]

Vera Dulova with a pupil c.1965 The international Harpweeks continued until 1979. The tenth anniversary in 1969 featured 90 harpists representing 22 countries, with four recitals a day followed by discussions on technique, repertoire, interpretation, style and tone. The anniversary was celebrated by a gala concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The three soloists were Susann

25 McDonald [USA], Susanne Mildonian [Belgium], beaucoup de possibilités”; and then Maria would Edward Witsenburg [Holland]), all prize winners at [launch into criticism]. Sometimes Phia would detail the First International Harp Contest in Israel in 1959. me to go off and comfort the players because they The programme finished with the world premiere of were so upset. MK had the courage to say certain Hymns and Conversations for 28 harps by Robert things. But she and Phia respected each other. They Heppener, commissioned by the Dutch Cultuurfonds were very different personalities, but they were a BUMA in honour of the tenth anniversary, double act and it worked.’ [30] performed by Phia Berghout, Maria Korchinska and 26 other harpists (including two of Korchinska’s pupils, Sian Morgan and Una O’Donovan). [28] This piece was performed again by 28 British harpists in December 1974 at St Johns Smith Square, London, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the United Kingdom Harp Association (including on this occasion MK’s pupil Karen Vaughan). [29]

Maria Korchinska and Phia Berghout at the gala opening concert, Seventh National Conference of the American Harp Society, Texas Technical University, June 1970

After Korchinska’s death in 1979, Berghout wrote:

‘When, through death, one loses such a friend and colleague, and especially when that friend was advanced in years, thoughts wander back not only to the first meeting but also to the many periods in life Robert Heppener’s Hymns and Conversations for of an individual: periods of youth and love, of 28 harps, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, 1969 sadness and loneliness, of glamour, exile and disappointment, of real struggle for life juxtaposed with days of lovely family existence. To have The international Harpweeks were very successful experienced all these things must have been but were not able to survive without the personality extremely hard for a person of Maria’s character; yet, and energy of the founders. After the 20th Harp whatever life brought her, one quality was always Week Phia Berghout decided to stop--a decision uppermost: the directness of her feelings and the influenced partly by age and partly by the death of strength of her opinion. Maria Korchinska in 1979. A little later Berghout was instrumental in establishing a World Harp Congress, We met in Israel in 1959 on the occasion of the first the first of which was held in Maastricht in 1981. But International Harp Contest. After having arranged the Queekhoven era had come to an end. some national harp conferences in the Netherlands, I Karen Vaughan, though later closely involved in the intended to organise an International Harpweek, and World Harp Congress, remembers the earlier era with in Israel I decided to make the management a a certain wistfulness: ‘In the early days of Harpweek partnership. How many brilliant harpists were we didn’t have all these international harp members of the jury! ...... There was only one there gatherings. This was their vision, to create something of whom I was a bit frightened and that was Maria where we could all get together and learn from each Korchinska! Perhaps just for that reason I asked her other and it was the most wonderful experience to be my partner. I admired her personality and every time you went —not too big, you all got to character, so different from my own, and never in all know each other, and it wasn’t a competition... But those years after have I regretted my decision for a it is thanks to people like them that we have these moment. international gatherings now.’ For nineteen years she was for me an outstanding ‘Phia Berghout and Maria Korchinska were chalk and colleague and a very dear friend. How deep was her cheese. During the morning [at Queekhoven] love for the instrument and for the harp profession, students would perform, so you’d get up and play to what wonderful humour she had and what an this row of eminent harpists: there was Maria, Phia immense interest in young people. Perhaps they Berghout, Vera Dulova if she was there, Inga Graae could not always understand the directness of her from Denmark, Mireille Flour from Belgium and critique, but how could they? They were still too others-- all these amazing harp teachers, who would young to know that all her remarks, her criticism, then give you feedback. Phia Berghout might say: and her admiration were based on the highest “yes, there are a lot of good points about this” and feelings of responsibility to the profession and to Mireille Flour might say “beaucoup de possibilités, music.....[31]

26 10. Maria Korchinska and her pupils teaching post in an English music school. ‘What key are you in?’ she would bellow in the middle of a MK occupied an important place in the lineage of the difficult passage of the Hindemith sonata. ’How can Russian School which is recognised in the harp world you play the harp when you do not know harmony?’ as having a particular identity, and which has She expected a wide education in the Arts and maintained a continuity to this day.(See family tree Sciences, punctuality to within seconds rather than on preceding page). Writing on the eve of the Xenia minutes, and a correctness of behaviour not everyone Erdeli International Harp Competition (St Petersburg, could live up to.’ [34] 26th June - 2nd July, 2012) the French harpist Germaine Lorenzini commented: Among her earliest pupils were Una O’Donovan and Hannah Francis. Una O’Donovan was an Irish girl ‘While Western harp teaching usually has strong links who began studying with MK at the age of about 15. with France in one way or another, Russia has always Korchinska had a high regard for her playing, and had stronger links with Germany. Johann would say of her: ‘she is my creation’. At the Hochbrucker first took a pedal harp to Russia in 1745, beginning of the 1970s she was co-principal harp of and a century later Albert Zabel arrived in St the Royal Opera House, alongside Hilary Wilson, who Petersburg. He combined his forty-year career at the also studied with Korchinska (see below), and later Mariinsky Theatre with being the first harp professor Una joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as at the newly founded St Petersburg principal harp. At a certain point she abandoned the Conservatory…Xenia Erdeli [who taught Maria instrument altogether and went to Tibet to join a Korchinska] herself studied with Ekaterina Walter- religious order. [35] Later she moved to the USA, Kühne, a Russo-German former pupil of Zabel, before where she now lives. She took up the harp again, and beginning her long and distinguished professional currently plays in a therapeutic setting, in Cedars career in 1899.’ [32]. Sinai, a non-profit hospital in Los Angeles. Attempts to make contact with Una O’Donovan in order to ask A German influence was also exercised through the about her experience with Korchinska, were influential harp pedagogue Alexander Slepushkin, unfortunately not successful. Korchinska’s main teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire, who had studied with Posse for several Hannah Francis years in Berlin. His students included Maria Korchinska, who in turn taught Vera Dulova, the most Hannah Francis is the younger daughter of two celebrated Soviet harpist of her generation. eminent musicians, the flautist John Francis (1908- Korchinska taught for only six years but in this time 1992) and pianist/harpsichordist Millicent Silver also made a strong impression in that role. (1905-1986). Her sister is the eminent oboist Sarah Francis, director of the London Harpsichord Milda Agazarian, professor of Harp at the Gnessin Ensemble, a chamber group set up by her parents in Academy of Music in Moscow, is also a Slepushkin 1945. John Francis developed a friendship with Maria descendant: her teacher in the 1960s, Klementina Korchinska through collaboration in chamber music, Baklanova, was one of his pupils. The sense of and they were also near neighbours in St John’s continuity is well illustrated by Agazarian’s comment Wood. on her edition of the harp version (originally for piano) of Glinka – Balakirev, The Lark (Harp Masters Edition 2008):

‘The tradition of performing this celebrated piano piece on the harp was established by the great Russian harpist and pedagogue Alexander Slepushkin. Unfortunately, his transcriptions were not written down or published, so they were handed down by his students. This reduction relates to the original performing tradition in the class of Vera Dulova, which she took over from her teacher Maria Korchinska, who in turn was a student of Alexander Slepushkin.’ [33]

Korchinska did not begin teaching in England until the 1950s, when already in her sixties, because she was too preoccupied with her own playing career. She had no formal attachment to music academies and taught at home, yet in this manner had a big impact on the British harp world. Maria Korchinska with John Francis and Anatole She was a very demanding, to some an impossibly Mimes c. 1940 daunting teacher. The harpist Isobel Frayling-Cork commented: ‘very few were able to withstand her Hannah began studying with Korchinska in 1955, at iron rules and insatiable perfectionism. She the age of ten. There is no doubt that a child of this demanded eight hours practice a day, as it had once age would need great strength to withstand been demanded of her. This together with the Korchinska’s tough approach. Hannah did have that lamentable standard of music education which she strength, but her time as a pupil was strongly found here outweighed any desire to accept a

27 R.N.C. Bochsa (France) 1789-1856

E.Parish-Alvars (UK) 1808-1849

C.. Grimm (Germany) 1820-1882

W. Posse (Germany) F. Pönitz (Germany) A. Zabel (Germany, 1852-1925 1850-1913 Russia) 1835-1910

A. Slepushkin (Russia) M. Saal (Germany) E. Walter-Kühne 1870-1918 1882-1948 (Germany, Russia.) 1870-1930

X. Erdeli (Russia) 1878-1971

M. Korchinska (Russia, UK) 1895-1979

Vera Dulova Hannah Una Hilary Sian Karen Isobel Brian Francis O’Donovan Wilson Morgan- Vaughan Frayling- Davis Thomas Cork

Natalya Shameyeva

An abbreviated family tree of harpists, showing part of the lineage of the Russian school (who taught whom), including Maria Korchinska and those of her pupils who appear in this sketch.

28 affected by a developing doubt about whether the fourth note! How many beats in this bar!? And you’d harp could satisfy her musical needs. start counting out loud: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, then ‘NO!’… You don’t have the brains to play the harp! …two In a recent interview she spoke vividly of her hours of that, every Sunday morning.’ experience. [36] She grew up in an intensely musical environment: ‘my whole life was peppered with ‘She had a little dog called Patch, I think he was a people like Julian Bream and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Jack Russell... and… she used to hit him with a paper, Victoria de los Angeles, you name it, they were there, shouting “Patch, Patch!”...Once she rang my father and Manoug Parikian used to play with my parents. I up, and said imperiously: John, John, you must come was totally immersed in music…’ Also John Francis round, Patch has just wee-ed on the light switches played for Britten for many years, so ‘I grew up with and all the electricity has gone off! So he’d have to Britten and Pears and all that, it was all part of my go round...’ background.’ Hannah was very good at the harp. However, her Her father, she says, was a ‘terrible control freak’, experience was coloured by a constant awareness and pushed her towards the harp because there that the instrument was her father’s choice, by MK’s weren’t many good harpists around, because he had daunting style of tuition (utterly wrong, Hannah says, befriended MK, and because she very conveniently for a child), and by the growing sense that this was lived round the corner. He bought a harp for her (an not the instrument for her. Erard) when she ten, and took her to hear Nicanor Zabaleta, who played her the Ceremony of Carols. At the same time, despite her youth, she was able to She was captivated by this evocative music, while read between the lines. She felt that MK’s toughness also aware that the decision to embark on the harp reflected a difficult life, and the huge adjustments was taken to please her father. involved in emigrating and making a career in England. Also ‘there was this terrible thing where in a A long period of training began. Every Sunday way I loved her’. It was a love-hate relationship, and morning she would take her bike round to MK’s one which occupied a huge place in Hannah’s early Georgian house in Greville Road. She was a strong life. child—a tomboy. Yet so unnerving was Korchinska’s style that every time she felt that she was taking her After five years of tuition, at the age of 15, Hannah life into her hands. She would park her bike in front won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. of the house, say goodbye to the trees and birds in However, it was not really something that she sought the garden and summoning up courage, knock on the for herself—it was, she felt, much more to do with door. her father and MK proving a point, than about the fulfilment of her own needs. She was in fact hating the harp, and stifled by the trajectory into which she had been propelled. At home, she would hear her father and MK discussing Hannah’s career, saying Hannah would do this and that, would of course practise 4 hours a day, would win this and that competition. There was no room for an adolescence, no room to develop into the person that she needed to be. So ‘I went to the director and said, I’m only 15, I need to grow up, I don’t want to be a student yet…’

And so she was allowed to stay on at school, but during the first term the pressures of her childhood started to manifest in a disturbing way: ‘I began to develop agoraphobia, and eating disorders, and eczema…I was in a terrible state, I couldn’t get to school.’ She left after a term.

Maria Korchinska’s house in St John’s Wood At this point she decided to explore another path, (36 Greville Road) and began working as a volunteer at the Royal College of Music opera school, doing chores and Sometime later, after the first year or two, a man- assisting in stage management. It was then that she servant called Stinker appeared on the scene. ‘I’d realised how much she loved the theatre. Also ‘I knock and there would be Stinker. There was a knew I had a good voice, and this was what I wanted horrible sweet smell… it was alcohol though I didn’t to do’. really know it at the time. And he would say: madam is downstairs, or something like that, and she will be Yet she continued to pursue a harp career, having a up in a moment… so I would have to wait—the agony ‘burning need to achieve’. At the age of 18 she won of waiting!’ Then ‘she would come in, hissing like the Royal Overseas League prize for the most Edith Sitwell, in a tight black skirt and lacey black promising musician, competing against singers as stockings and hand-made high heel shoes, and well as instrumentalists, and continued to perform at always the same emerald earrings’ ‘Have you a high level. worked?’ ‘Errr…yes, and my hands would be shaking… and then we’d start and the lesson was For a time she had lessons with Marie Goossens, who never-ending: thumbs up, wrist! I cannot hear the was teaching the harp at the Royal College, but soon

29 stopped because Marie Goosens was an orchestral happened, allowed her to establish a different kind of player and had nothing, Hannah felt, to contribute to relationship with Maria Korchinska. Somebody her solo repertoire: ‘Would I ever sit in an orchestra, suggested that Hannah sing some Tchaikovsky songs, would I be in the chorus?... You count for hours and and she now asked Maria to translate the texts and hours and then you realise you’ve counted way past coach her on the Russian pronunciation--though where you should have come in, and nobody noticed Hannah was told later that she sang them with a anyway. But I am a “look at me” person, and you Polish accent! In this setting Maria, although naturally have to know who you are…Yes the harp can create she found it difficult that Hannah had abandoned the interesting effects, but I don’t want to be an effect! If harp, became ‘quite charming’, greatly enjoyed the you give me a brush, I need a big canvas, and oils. work of translation, and began to talk about her early And in that way Korchinska did have a big brush and years. oils. And she brought rhythmic discipline, and she was colourful.’ Hilary Wilson Hannah persisted with occasional lessons from MK, who still exerted a strong influence, and continued to Hilary Wilson’s musical life began with the piano, command, saying ‘no, you are not ready for this aged 3. She showed little interest until the age of 11 concert!’ and then at the very end she might say: when she suddenly became obsessed with music, ‘now you are ready!’ listening intently to records on the family gramophone (these included Swan Lake—never In the 1960s Hannah began attending the imagining that one day Tchaikovsky would have a International Harp Weeks in Holland, presided over more serious significance!) She began to spend hours by Phia Berghout (‘a lovely gentle woman’) and MK, at the piano, she grappled with Chopin Études, who ‘sat listening in triumph, her legs crossed, accompanied the school choir, made solo dressed in those black lacey things’. In Holland appearances in concerts and was a prizewinner at the Hannah’s competitive spirit would kick in—she had to local music festival in Bedford where her family then be the best. She enjoyed the house in Queekhoven lived. She loved playing for her brother, who was a and the company of other players, because she had medical student at Guy’s and played the flute in the felt isolated for so much of her youth (‘if I wasn’t Stock Exchange Orchestra. [37] isolated I might get away’), and she was especially drawn to the Russians (‘they were big-hearted people Hilary had been a keen artist from early childhood, and I resonate with people like that’), remembers and despite encouragement from her music teachers, Dulova well, and recalls with particular affection a she left school to study at the Luton School of Art, pupil of Dulova who played Chopin. where she proved a natural illustrator with wood engraving (a medium that was much used as a method of printing at the time, in the 1950s). Then in 1956 her father was posted to Head Office at Barclays Bank Cardiff, and after moving to the area Hilary continued her art studies at the Art School there and completed her Art Diploma.

A year’s teaching followed, up north at Macclesfield Grammar School. At this time an aunt discovered that a friend had a single action harp in her loft. To Hilary’s delight, having long had a yen for the instrument, at the age of 21 she became the owner of this fortunate ‘find’ and had lessons in Cardiff from Beatrice Botterill, official Harpist for the Principality of Wales and Royal occasions. Hilary’s father transported the harp to Macclesfield, where her generous host family allowed it in her bedroom. Bentveld 1962: detail from photo on p.22 Top left: Hannah Francis; bottom right her After a year of Art teaching, Hilary’s music instincts parents Millicent Silver and John Francis; became ever more insistent. She returned to her bottom left: Hilary Wilson parents and gained her LRAM in piano, while continuing with harp lessons, and had a solo harp Hannah Francis finally abandoned the harp at the appearance on Welsh TV. beginning of the 1970s—her last concert, which included the Ceremony of Carols, was in the Queen She heard Maria Korchinska playing on radio Elizabeth Hall. She had agonised over this decision broadcasts, kept a scrapbook of Radio Times notices for years because ‘I thought if I stop playing the harp of her chamber and solo performances, and decided there is nobody there….if I said I don’t like playing to write to ask her about tuition. MK sent a postcard the harp they would say, but you have such beautiful in reply asking her to bring some music and to play long hair, and it’s such a wonderful instrument, and to her. you’re so good at it! And I’d say, but there’s nothing behind, there’s nobody there.’ ‘My mother, who made a study of handwriting and palmistry (she had always irritated my brother by Nonetheless Hannah did take the plunge and reading our palms at every opportunity!), examined embarked on a singing career, did very well and MK’s writing and said “This looks a generous and became a principal at the ENO. This change, as it interesting person…though perhaps a little

30 eccentric…I think you should go ahead and see if she and less flexible—there was a simple straightforward will have you.” ‘grind’ that, once mastered, left one totally free to express whatever the composer or the individual I will never forget the day I went to play to her at her player wished. It was getting through those often house in Maida Vale, her larger than life personality tedious first stages, so totally uncompromising, that with that intriguing foreign accent, and the must have left many of her pupils feeling inadequate. fascinating room crammed with beautiful things and One had to be very determined, obsessed with the the harp silhouetted against the light in the window. instrument, dedicated to music, and to value this And I was so lucky—“This is very promising—you will disciplined approach as being the right one for come and stay, and we will work at the Bochsa oneself at that stage. Occasionally she would Études as soon as you have mastered the basic hand explode, but then pupils can be very irritating, positions.” especially when not advanced—I did not find her unfairly demanding.’ So, at the start of 1960, at the age of 24, I stayed with Maria for a fortnight (I call her Maria now, but in During this two-week stay MK was in and out at those days I would never have addressed her other engagements, and there were constant phone calls. than as Madame Korchinska or Madame). My father While Hilary was there she wrote to a friend, who has had now been posted to Hertfordshire and we moved kept the letter. It includes the following episodes: MK to Harpenden. I taught the piano at the large St gave a dinner for Nicanor Zabaleta at her daughter George’s Co-Ed Secondary School adjacent to our Nathalie Brooke’s house, and the next day dined with house. Several professional musicians travelled down him at a Spanish restaurant. She thought his playing from London to teach at the school. Before long, as beautiful, but small in tone. He was aware of this but my studies with Maria progressed, it began to look as said he did not like loud harp playing! Another time, though I had found my true vocation and I moved to on Hilary’s insistence (Maria did not want to hear a flat share on the edge of Holland Park with, now, herself performing), they listened to a radio my double action Erard, and concentrated entirely on broadcast of Maria playing the Handel concerto, on the harp. “Your Concert Choice”. Charles Mackerras introduced the programme and referred to the “tinkling of the In those incredible two weeks with Maria and her harp” in the Handel. As expected this comment was harp at her home in Greville Road, my life changed as greeted with horror by Maria! Then one afternoon in a wonderful dream. The hall was stacked with harp Gareth Morris, the Philharmonia principal flute, and music, and there were similar piles of music on each the soprano Sophie Wyss came to rehearse for a step of the staircase. Then you went immediately left charity concert at the Église Suisse in Endell Street in into quite a small front room, with a harp in the Covent Garden. Hilary remembers this as the only window, the strings against the light so you would time during her stay that Maria practised. get the shadow of the strings on the music—but she didn’t worry about things like that (don’t fuss!). There Hilary recalls other vivid moments. John Francis, the were very few comforts, perhaps one easy chair, and eminent flautist, lived just round the corner. She the room was crowded with antique items, including a would give him a call, saying that she had to put her grand ornamental chest with many drawers, and with harp in the car (it was before harp trollies were engravings of old Moscow (the Bolshoi Theatre etc) generally available), and he would rush over to help-- on the walls. they were clearly very friendly. One day Maria’s son Sasha (‘very handsome and dashing’) looked in: ‘He I slept in the attic apex of the roof, and if MK needed was made to sit and listen to my playing (“listen to me she would climb the roof ladder. We had the odd Mees Vilson!”). When Maria was out of earshot, I meal together in her kitchen: “we will eat very happened to ask him if he played an instrument. “I simply, as all artists do…” She had a small terrier, wanted to play the guitar”, he replied, but “mother ‘Patch’, who frequently slipped out into the street wouldn’t hear of it”, his face dejected at the memory from the front door, when ajar. MK’s voice would be of this disappointment. He was obviously still heard “PATCH! TO YOUR BASKET!!” and then she brooding on what all the fuss was about. It seems would say to me: “just like a street girl, sidling up to that, where music was concerned, Maria expected all any passer by!” I don’t remember Patch getting much or nothing from her family, rather as her strict father attention otherwise.’ had done when she and her siblings were young.’ [38] About her tuition Hilary recalls: She was also demanding about culture in general: ‘We had one lesson a day, concentrating entirely on ‘She was concerned as to one’s pursuit of cultural the basic hand positions. We then worked through influences and would enquire, for example, if I had volume I of the Bochsa Études, before touching any been to the important large Picasso exhibition, and “if other harp music. I already knew about the German not, why not?!”’ background to Maria’s playing: there was a real thoroughness and you had to start from the Hilary recalls that in private, during lessons or beginning, she had to be absolutely sure. Much later, chatting afterwards, Maria’s comments on other when I was privileged to have a fortnight’s lessons harpists and musicians were often caustic. Yet she with Solange Renié (niece of Henriette Renié, the could also be very generous—for example, when virtuoso harpist, composer and transcriber of classic Marisa Robles arrived on the scene she praised her compositions) at Mme Solange’s summer home in “glowing musicality and engaging personality”. Étretat, I came to realise the difference compared with the French School. Maria’s Russian methods, She was also very generous when it came to payment with a strong German inheritance, were more direct for board and lodging and lessons. She refused to

31 charge anything, but knowing Hilary’s background in After one of the Moscow performances, Erdeli (who art, asked by way of recompense that Hilary design had taught Korchinska) and Dulova (who had been and print 150 Christmas cards for her. She agreed, taught by Korchinska) and one or two of their pupils designed a card with a harp theme, and developed it came up to me in the foyer. They were fascinated by into a linocut. MK seemed genuinely pleased with the this little English harpist who was studying with result, and Hilary was then proud to receive one of Maria! Sometime later I was invited to Erdeli’s flat, her own cards with Maria’s Xmas greeting and along with Jimmy Blades the percussionist, Elizabeth signature! Wilson (a young cello student at the Conservatoire, who later married Radu Lupu), and David Beattie, Cultural Attaché at the British Embassy. We were greeted in the doorway by the diminutive Madame Erdeli, her friend Madame Sophia Muromtseva, a renowned recitateuse (a narrator of traditional chronicles and tales), and three vivacious pupils.

Madame Erdeli ushered us into her sitting room and clustered us all round a large lace-covered table extravagantly laden with gateaux, grapes and chocolates. Our glasses filled with Armenian muscat and our cups with citron tea, the talk flew in all directions, with Mr Beattie acting as interpreter….

Then out of a hubbub of reminiscence and enquiry came the command ‘Now-play!’, upon which each pupil in turn took her place at the harp. These girls, Hilary continues: ‘I studied intensively with Maria for like most Soviet musicians, had undergone the ten about three years, and my career really took off as a year music school training prior to their present result. During that period I already had a few dates, conservatoire studies. Their complete knowledge of including a performance with professionals of the harp, their dedication and their striking Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, which has a wonderful individuality, left a deep impression. harp part. Maria had given my name to the conductor John Carewe, and I did the Stravinsky Symphony in It was time for us to return to the theatre. Mme Three Movements in Euston Hall—I loved it. Then Erdeli gave me a signed photo, made a gesture as if Osian Ellis wasn’t available to play the Beggars Opera to wipe away tears, and kissed ‘the little English at Aldeburgh, which Britten was doing with Pears, harpist’ goodbye…’ [39] and I was booked in his place. That was quite a challenge, but somehow I survived, in fact Britten was very pleased. So my career really started with Benjamin Britten.

Then in 1964, I was booked to go with Britten and Photo signed Pears and the English Chamber Orchestra for a K. Erdeli, and month’s tour to Russia, where I played Rape of inscribed: To Lucretia, Albert Herring and Turn of the Screw in Hilary Wilson, Leningrad, Riga and Moscow—an astonishing a wonderful experience. Dulova came to see me before one of the harpist, in Moscow performances, and spoke to me over the memory of edge of the pit. We had left our hotel in a coach, and our meeting got to the theatre 15 minutes before the audience in Moscow were due, which is alright for string and wind players, 18 October but very little time for a harp! So I had to say “I’m 1964 sorry, please forgive me, but I really must tune up”… but she was gracious and understanding.

Notice for Royal Following the Russian tour there was a UK tour of the Opera House Britten operas. There then followed engagements performances of with the main Symphony Orchestras of the UK, Britten operas, with modern chamber music broadcasts for the BBC’s English Chamber Third programme, and participation in all aspects of Orchestra. Albert London musical life from light music to shows. Herring, Rape of Lucretia, Turn of In 1967 the Royal Opera House phoned me and the Screw asked, “would you like to come for an audition? Your Leningrad name has been on the list and there’s space at the September 1964 moment for a co-principal harp”. I was auditioned, was accepted, and it all went on from there, and I became Principal about 18 months later.’

32 Hilary played with the Royal Opera House orchestra In 1996, towards the end of a long and successful for 29 years, from 1967 to 1997. She joined at a career, Hilary Wilson was invited by the International golden time when money was flowing, when Fonteyn Committee of the 6th World Harp Congress in and Nureyev, Sutherland and Pavarotti were at their Tacoma, Seattle in the USA to perform in a ‘Harp and zenith (one of the first recordings she did was with Opera Gala’ concert at the beautiful Pantages Sutherland and Pavarotti in Lucia di Lammermoor, Theater. The concert featured exposed harp parts, which has a celebrated harp cadenza). In the ensuing and she was asked to play Donizetti’s Lucia di years she played under the baton of many Lammermoor Introduction and Recitative, with its luminaries, including Solti, Klemperer, Kripps, Muti, celebrated harp cadenza, as well as in other pieces. Kempe, Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Colin Davis, Mehta, The Donizetti performance was with the Tacoma Boulez, Dohnanyi, Haitink, accompanying a host of Symphony Orchestra and a local soprano, conducted great singers and dancers. She also worked under the by Benton Hess. Three other harpists—Astrid von composers Stockhausen, Henze, Harrison Birtwistle Brueck (Dresden Opera), Margarita Arnal (Barcelona and Peter Maxwell Davies. Opera) and Natalia Shameyeva (Bolshoi Theatre)— also took solo parts. It was an honour to be invited Hilary continued her association with MK when to this event and, and especially rewarding to meet preparing for and attending the 1969 Harpweek in Natalya Shameyeva, solo harpist at the Bolshoi. ‘I Queekhoven in Holland. She had participated in other only wish’, Hilary says, ‘that Maria Korchinska could Harpweeks in previous years, the first time in 1962 in have known about this wonderful occasion; I like to Bentveld (see photo on p.23 and detail on p.30), think she would have been pleased with my when she was one of those chosen to play in the final progress.’ concert : ‘Maria was very pleased, I got a nice review in a Dutch paper, and there is a picture of me holding a beautiful agate pendant, striped brown and black, which Maria gave me—she loved antique things and was very generous to her pupils.’

Logo of United Kingdom Harp Association, designed by Hilary Wilson

Hilary Wilson with pendant gift from Maria Korchinska

After Opera Concert at 6th World Harp Congress, Seattle-Tacoma, Washington USA, July 1996 L to R: Kenneth Gayle (tenor), Margarita Arnal (Barcelona Opera harpist), Natalya Shameyeva (Bolshoi Theatre harpist), Benton Hess (conductor), Hilary Wilson (Royal Opera House harpist), Lisa Melina Pyron (mezzo soprano), Astrid von Brueck (Dresden Opera harpist), Clayton Brainerd (baritone), Kathleen Taylor (soprano)

33 Sian Morgan Thomas which I think I was allowed to finish on that occasion before being torn to pieces. “You play very well, but it is undisciplined.” How many others will have heard those words, I wonder?

She certainly expected high standards, and you had to be well prepared, you couldn’t just waltz in, and there was no compromise: everything was black or white, yes or no; no grey in between and no humming and hawing. Had I gone to her a timid 15- year old, her tough approach might well have been Sian Morgan too much for me. But I was, after all, a fairly Thomas hardened 25-year old by this time. 2013 Her uncompromising approach made it difficult for some people to see eye to eye with her, but you Sian Morgan (later Sian Morgan Thomas) first went to always knew where you stood and there was no Maria Korchinska in 1968, at the age of 25, when she hypocrisy. Also, her criticism was always constructive had already embarked on a performing career, and and helpful, and if there were some points of studied with her on an occasional basis for about two fingering or interpretation on which we disagreed, years. [40] She was born in Cardiff in 1943, the she would listen to my point of view and allow me to second of three sisters who all learned to play the do it my way as long as I could justify myself. This harp, on an Erard Gothic that Sian’s maternal was a refreshing attitude in contrast to my grandfather had acquired before the war. Her parents experience in France, where they were very proud of were musical and the harp became an integral part of their own style and tended to be critical of all others. their lives. They were also fortunate in having a She helped to restore my confidence and I shall music teacher at school who taught the instrument. always be grateful for that.

After school Sian trained as a primary teacher, but We got on very well, and after a few lessons she was then encouraged to pursue a harp career, and said: “you must go on Opportunity Knocks!” I must attended Ann Griffiths’ harp school at her home, admit I hadn’t heard of Opportunity Knocks, but she Pantybeiliau, Gilwern, near Abergavenny in south- lent me her harp, and off I went. When I saw some of east Wales. It was through Ann Griffiths that she the people there I thought “I must be in the wrong met the French harpist Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche, place!” However I did play, and very soon they said who suggested that she come to Paris to continue her “please start again” and recorded me, and eventually studies. This advice was followed and Sian spent two I went on the programme in September 1968. I years (1964–66) at the Paris Conservatoire. don’t remember who won it, though, I imagine it was a pop group!’ On her return from France she took a job as a peripatetic harp teacher in Glamorgan. She found MK also introduced Sian to the Harpweeks in Holland, plenty to do since the harp was the traditional which she remembers with affection: instrument of Wales and very popular in schools, and combined this work with orchestral playing. After ‘She introduced Queekhoven to me, which was a about two years of teaching and performing, she great experience because we were meeting with decided to seek out Maria Korchinska in order to gain people from different countries and backgrounds, and fresh impetus. She recalls: in such beautiful surroundings. I went first in 1968, and in the following year was invited to return, ‘When I was 15, my harp teacher, Marjorie Cole, said together with the Irish harpist Una O’Donovan. 1969 on several occasions, “I must send you to was the 10th anniversary year of the Harpweeks, Korchinska”, but, somehow, it never happened. This when a specially commissioned work for 28 harps by ambition must have remained in the back of my mind Robert Heppener, Hymns and Conversations, was however because, several harp courses later, performed. I was one of the 28, and it was a great including two years at the Paris Conservatoire, I privilege to be invited to take part, though the decided I still needed an occasional prod in the ribs to national badge was an issue: we were each supplied keep up a respectable standard. So, on my way to with a country badge and Una and I were both given Italy for a holiday, I allowed a few extra hours in the Union Jack—we weren’t too happy about that!’ London in order to telephone Madame Korchinska, to (See photo of the occasion above p.26) explain that I was a member of the UKHA, and please could I come to see her? Sian’s lessons with MK came to an end in 1970, but she and MK had established a good relationship and “Come to tea this afternoon” was the brisk reply. Well Maria continued to provide support and it was too late to change my mind, and I found my encouragement, as testified by letters (25 during the way to her house in St Johns Wood, my arrival period 1970 to 1975) which Sian has kept and heralded by the ever-faithful Patch. I can’t remember treasured. ‘To me’, Sian says, ‘she was much more what we talked about—I couldn’t take my eyes off than just a harp teacher. She was, in spite of the those harps! generation gap, a friend in whom I could confide and whose judgement I could rely upon.’ At last, I plucked up the courage to ask if she could give me some lessons. “Play for me” came the Sian married Huw Thomas in 1970 and their first immediate order. It was Pierné’s Impromptu—Caprice child, Guto, was born in September 1971.

34 MK wrote in touching vein to congratulate Sian on the both our names on it in the same size—it is charity, marriage. Here is the letter, in her characteristic so we both are the same. Please don’t write anything dynamic scrawl: much about me—if after nearly half a century people still don’t know “what” I am—it is hopeless to inform them –you can just say: M.K who has been active in every way to make the harp more popular for many years is giving her services for the Church..... The simpler the whole thing is the better it will be.’

However, it seems that Sian’s modesty prevailed. Sian recalls: ‘when Maria Korchinska arrived and saw the programme, she was furious. Why was her name in large print on the outside and mine only in small print on the inside? When was the next train back to London? My husband offered to take her back to the station but suggested a drink first, which was accepted, and accompanied by a remark I shall never forget—“when I start to drink, I drink like a river!” 9/2/1970 Dear Sian--Congratulations and my very And then my seven-week old son smiled at her and best wishes--you don’t know how happy I am for you she could not believe it—“babies hate me, but he’s a and how glad I am that you settled your life and are good boy”. happy--never mind the new harp--if you need, you can always borrow mine--it is so very, very much The situation was saved and on the night, the more important to have a nice partner in one’s life. I audience soon responded to her personality, send you my love. Maria Korchinska particularly when announcing the Lex Van Delden Duo she said, “this is the first time this piece is MK was delighted to hear that Sian proposed to have played in Wales” and as an afterthought “and it has a family, but writing on 9 October 1970 urged Sian not been played in England either!”’ not to give up playing and teaching: ‘so glad to have your letter…Very glad to hear you plan a family –but After the event Maria wrote to thank Sian and Huw: ‘I please don’t give up playing the harp—one can do thank you and Huw for my very interesting and combine children and the profession and you are a such a nice weekend. If I would not have played so capable player—it will be a great pity if you just abominably, it would have been perfect, but to my become a wife and mother—believe me it is possible great satisfaction you played very well, so that is to achieve both, especially when your parents are in some compensation for me....’(7 November 1971) the same town—the grandmothers are now very useful, and you never know what demands on your life might produce—so please play and teach.’

During this period, while Sian was awaiting Guto’s birth, she asked MK to give a charity concert in Cardiff, scheduled for November 1971, to raise money for the Organ Fund of her Chapel (Tabernacle Baptist Church) in Cardiff. In a letter of 13 May 1971, MK wrote: The offending ‘As usual, delighted to have a letter from you, and cover for the knowing all is well with you and you are happy— Tabernacle Baptist makes me feel good!—Am very glad also to know Church Organ your plans [are] not to stop playing, but go on Fund charity playing after the baby arrives—and if I come to play concert, Cardiff for you for the Church, I will see you all then. I never 6 November 1971 take a fee for Church or hospitals—so only my travelling expenses you have to face up to—but why not have a recital in the Church? I have done one recently in St Thomas’ Hospital in their church, and it A few weeks later MK wrote to ask how Guto was sounds well…but whatever you decide I certainly shall getting on, how much money was made for the be very pleased to help with the needs of your Chapel, and almost incidentally added : ‘My arm is Church…’ A few weeks later the plan was agreed, ghastly—to play is quite an agony, but I still try to go and MK wrote: ‘…have been terribly busy in every on’ (14 December 1971). A month later she wrote to way. Have booked Cardiff for Nov 3rd—and I will suggest doing a programme of duets, perhaps for suggest a programme soon, [but] only very definite local schools :‘ I have done several here [in London] condition is that we play duets at the end—one and it goes down very well and the duets are never classical and one modern…shall come a day before, if played, so I think we could have a chance!’, though I may, to rehearse ...(8 June 1971) again she said almost in passing: ‘My thumbs and now both shoulders give me hell and playing is not After the birth, on 11 September, MK wrote to too comfortable, but I must do all the dates I have congratulate Sian, and then on 30 September wrote accepted...’ (18 January 1972) about the forthcoming charity concert: ‘…Please be more reasonable about the programme—and have

35 MK’s toughness and resilience were extraordinary. Karen Vaughan The other side of that coin, as seen earlier, was without doubt a certain imperiousness. Sian MK continued to teach into the 1970s, when she was experienced this in a particular fashion when being in her late 70s and early 80s, retaining her vigour driven by her teacher: ‘One of my most frightening almost until the end. Karen Vaughan, who went on experiences was when I was with her in her car, she to a distinguished career as performer, teacher and was driving in London, she disregarded every other adjudicator, studied with MK during this latter phase, vehicle on the road, and they all seemed to know in the early 1970s, along with Isobel Frayling-Cork, that they should keep out of her way! And when we David Dunn and Richard Pierce. Karen became a arrived at her house she parked almost in the middle friend as well as a student, and reminisced vividly of the road and left the engine running, and I about her experience as a pupil and about the wider thought, this can’t be right, what am I going to do, relationship. She also provided access to much shall I say something? So I mentioned it tentatively, valuable material relating to MK’s life which has and she said, “Oh don’t worry, the man in the garage formed an important part of this account. opposite will deal with that!”’ [42]

Sian’s time with MK was more than forty years ago, but in a recent encounter she was reminded of her in a particularly striking way:

‘In 2011 after a month touring New Zealand, Huw and I joined a cruise ship in Auckland. We were seated for the evening meal at a table with another couple, a little older than ourselves, who had already been on the ship for some time. After a while the conversation got around to the subject of “what did you do for a living?” In a very humble fashion the gentleman, who turned out to be none other than Cy Payne, said he was an arranger/composer and had worked with many of the major orchestras and bands in London, and I said innocently “Oh I do music arranging as well, my “speciality” is harp ensembles, mainly for schools”. He then asked, “Have you by any chance heard of a harpist called Maria Korchinska?” At which point Huw and I both gasped and I nearly Karen Vaughan fell off my chair. So then of course we got talking and 2001 I explained the background. [41] Karen Vaughan first met MK in 1971 during her final year at the Royal Academy of Music, where she held the Baume (Manx) Scholarship for piano and played the flute (‘very badly’, she says) as a second instrument. Since her teens she had been passionately attracted to the harp:

‘My teacher at school said you need a second instrument, and I said I’d like to play the harp, but everybody laughed and someone said: here’s a flute. There was nobody to teach the harp and I didn’t come from a musical family.’ Later, at the Academy, she was allowed to adopt the harp as a Third Study with Enid Quiney, who had been a pupil of Gwendolen Mason. At that time most people who wanted to study the harp went to the Royal College, where Marisa Robles had started to teach. The result was that ‘I got thrown into the orchestra when I couldn’t play at all really, but I just loved being there, and I thought: this is what I want to do’. After three years of such experience, realising that she was still technically ill-equipped, she sought help from MK. Small carving of a celtic harp which had In a piece published in the UK Harp Association belonged to Maria Korchinska, presented to magazine in 1992, she recalled her first meeting in Sian Morgan Thomas by Nathalie Brooke at a 1971, her lessons and her wider relationship with MK: the Maria Korchinska anniversary concert ‘At my interview I was punctual, which she applauded, and I played transcriptions, which she deplored. She thought my hands were ‘rather weak’ and she said I was too old. I was twenty one. However, she agreed to take me as a pupil as long as I understood I had to start from scratch, HER way,

36 and she insisted I attend the International Harpweek getting upset about my playing. She couldn’t abide in Queekhoven, Holland, that summer. She and the tears and would rather shore me up with a stiff Dutch harpist Phia Berghout had instigated these Scotch than mop me up. gatherings after serving together on the jury at the first Israel Harp Contest. She was very kind to me at We became friends. I collected her pension, we went Queekhoven and took a great deal of trouble to point to concerts together and I drove her to Battersea out the good and bad elements in the harp playing Dogs Home to choose a stray. The only time I heard we heard, so that I would understand what she was her use her title, Countess Benckendorff, was on talking about when we started lessons. giving her name to a dim-witted girl when collecting Jet, a mischievous black mongrel who chewed up her Lessons duly commenced on the first of October. I designer shoes and was eventually given away. toast her with champagne on that date every year! I went twice, sometimes three times a week to start It is a curious fact that I never knew in advance with. Knowing her obsession for punctuality, I would whether my lesson would be constructive or arrive early and quake in my boots round the corner destructive. On occasions when I had practised like a until it was time to knock at the door of the eccentric fiend I would come away from the little pink cottage pink cottage in St John’s Wood. I played on the Lyon in utter despair, whereas I could be exhilarated for and Healy with the straight soundboard which I now days when I felt I hadn’t deserved any praise. Was own, and she allowed me to remove some of the pile this due to Madame Korchinska’s mood or mine? of cushions from the chair behind. She was very Maybe it’s a common phenomenon experienced by fierce and very critical, and extraordinarily patient everyone who struggles to play a musical instrument. when one considers she was seventy-six years old Maria Korchinska was at once inspiring, exasperating, and taking on a virtual beginner. exacting and intensely human. I still miss her as teacher, mentor and friend.’ [43] She taught me how to sit at the harp and her basic rules for making a big, warm sound. She was One of MK’s more difficult traits was her obsession absolutely insistent on a good hand position. The with punctuality, which Karen likens to a phobia. Russian School differs from the French in one Karen would get to a lesson early but wait around the important respect…the thumb remains upright. She corner till it was exactly the right time, because she told me her teaching methods descended in a direct was expected to turn up on the dot and didn’t want to line from Bochsa (see p. 28) and I worked on over a start off on the wrong foot. ‘And then before I hundred Bochsa Etudes. She wouldn’t let me look at finished a lesson, I would take a surreptitious look at my hands when I played studies, but I couldn’t see her clock, to see if it was fast or slow relative to the music either because she turned the stand away mine, because ‘on the dot’ would vary depending on from me in order to remind me of my mistakes with her clock.’ angry dashes and circles from a pencil which must have been over a foot long. The only answer was to Karen survived these rigours, though ‘had I been memorise the studies but play them staring straight fifteen it would have been different.. I already had ahead into space! experience of music college and I’d had a very difficult piano professor—I was used to being told Scales and arpeggios were ‘de rigeur’ on every visit how hopeless I was!’ The reward was an excellent and she would extract exercises from Victor Coeur’s technical training: ‘She said to me: “I will give you ‘École du Mécanisme’. Pieces started with the technique, and it’s up to you what you do with Hasselmans, Renié and Tournier (she was particularly it”….and it wasn’t teaching like you get in music fond of his Six Noëls) and I studied a wealth of British college, where you have an hour or an hour and a music with her...Parry, Alwyn, Mathias, Britten, half with each student—you went for the whole Dodgson. She scorned much of the Romantic morning or afternoon.’ repertoire but I think this was due to a surfeit of Zabel, Godefroid and Oberthür during her own time Since Karen was already working professionally, it at the Moscow Conservatoire. Remember, she was was too late for an extended period of further study, born in 1895. Many classics of our harp literature but in any case ‘[MK] didn’t have much time for those hadn’t even been composed. She viewed people who studied for 10 years. She used to say: “in ‘interpretation’ with suspicion and would never allow ten years I could teach a dog to play the harp!”’ me to impose any of my own ideas on a piece until I could play exactly what the composer had indicated There was little flexibility in MK’s approach, and the in every detail. She maintained that good emphasis was always on what the composer wanted, performance style stems from a knowledge of the Art, she had little time for ‘interpretation’. She would say Literature and Social History of the period, not just its that we haven’t composed it ourselves so we have to Music. respect what the composer asked for. However she did talk about musical issues, and of course knew After two years of lessons which were necessarily that technique was not enough. Karen recalls another intermittent because I had to learn a living by pupil, Richard Pierce, who played the harp in an army teaching piano and accepting orchestral gigs all round band. ‘For some reason Richard was sent to MK. I the country, Madame Korchinska seemed to wind once went to the house just as Richard was finishing down her life and she was more interested in my a lesson, and she said, “I want you to listen to gossip than my hand position. We would have lunch Richard”. And when he left she asked: and what did together, often Polish rissoles from a delicatessen off you think? and I said “well, he’s got a perfect hand Maida Vale, and drink the appalling British sherry position”, and she said “I gave him that!” but added: which she insisted on serving even if I took a decent “yes, he does everything perfect, as I tell him to do, bottle along. The whisky came out if she saw I was but he has no music.”’

37 Although MK cautioned against ‘interpretation’, on end of 2014. Other distinguished roles have included: occasion she would adopt a very individual teacher at the Purcell School for musically gifted conception of a piece, as Karen recalls in the children; Professor of Pedal Harp at the Royal following piquant story: Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow (1999 to 2008); coach for the the Pacific Youth “I’d already moved up to Scotland, where I was Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Great working, and I had to play the Debussy Danses. Britain and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. Because I’d started so late, I had no repertoire at all, She is currently Head of Harp at the Royal Academy so if someone asked me to play something I had to of Music, and was was awarded Fellowship of the learn it specially, I didn’t have anything to draw on. Royal Academy of Music in 2014. And so I learned it on my own, and then asked her if I could come down and have a lesson. It would have She has also performed and served in organisational been around 1977 when she was already in her 80s. or adjudicating roles roles at numerous international She said yes, I will give you a lesson on the Debussy harp events. She acted as hostess at the Maria Danses, but you will never play it well because you Korchinska International Harp Competition in the Isle like men. She thought you could only play the of Man in 1983 and played in tribute to Maria Debussy Danses properly if you were homosexual! Korchinska at the 8th World Harp Congress in Geneva The pieces are called Danse Sacré and Danse in 2002. Since then she has been closely involved in Profane, and Maria was firmly convinced that the first the World Harp Congress, and is currently a Board described goddesses going to the temple and the member and Associate Artistic Director. [44] second represented a lesbian orgy. That was her understanding of the piece. And I thought, well OK, but I’ve got to play it anyway!’

There was much that was exacting and forbidding about MK as a teacher. Yet there was also warmth and friendship and support to be found, as this account has already shown. ‘Sometimes’, Karen recalls, ‘ Isobel, David and I used to end up in her funny little cottage in St Johns Wood, for example after we’d all been to a concert, and then she would come out with all these stories.’

Following her period of study with MK in the early 1970s, Karen Vaughan went on to become a founder member of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1976, with whom she often appeared as a concerto soloist. She was then principal harp of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for six years before returning to London in 1984. In that year she was made Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and appointed co- Karen Vaughan principal harp of the London Symphony Orchestra, 2014 with whom she performed until her retirement at the

Engraving left for Karen Vaughan by Maria Korchinska. This had been a gift to Korchinska from her teacher Alexander Slepushkin. It is from Le Concert (‘A Madame La Comtesse de Saint Brisson’) by Antoine Jean Dubos (1742-1795)

38 Brian Davis He took it and had it properly strung. He was told by the man who did this that it was the most beautiful Brian Davis, the pupil who recorded ‘Maria harp he had ever seen.’ Korchinska: the first chapter of an autobiography’, studied with Korchinska regularly for five years from Brian retained this harp for ten years after which it 1972 to 1977, and had occasional further sessions was returned to its old home, and Gundry writes that during the last two years of her life. [45] His ‘it looked so beautiful all strung-up again that I could trajectory as a musician is striking because he has not resist the temptation to have a go at it myself.’ combined music with other activities. He studied [45] English Literature at Cambridge and taught English in schools for 24 years (first at Maidstone Grammar Brian took some lessons with Helena Morcom Taylor, School, then Chester GS, then Swaffham GS in who played the Celtic harp for Gundry’s Sacred-Music Norfolk, then more briefly at Wolverhampton Drama Society, and who showed him ‘a very Grammar). He then left school-teaching, took a outmoded English technique.’ The viola continued to Masters qualification in the History of Art at the be Brian’s first instrument for the next 10 years or Courtauld Institute, and taught for many years in so, but he began to do more and more harp work. He that field on a part-time basis—a field which he was inspired in the first instance by Gundry, who was continues to pursue in retirement. Meanwhile, a composer of operas and asked Brian to play harp throughout, Brian maintained and developed a deep parts in them, so that he had to work towards a interest in music. At school he studied the piano and professional standard. viola, and from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, following superb tuition from John Harrison, a BBC Meanwhile Brian had also befriended the composer Symphony Orchestra player, the viola was his main William Lewarne Harris, who proposed to write a instrument, which he played to a high level. work for soprano and harp, to be performed by Margaret Lindsay (a singer-friend of the composer) The harp first appeared in his musical life after and Brian, to be included in a programme of Lewarne graduation from Cambridge in 1960. At this time he Harris’s compositions at the Wigmore Hall in May got to know the composer Inglis Gundry, who lived 1973. close by in Mill Hill. Gundry was very interested in medieval music dramas, for which he created ‘I was extremely flattered and in a way rather performing editions, and Brian became closely frightened. I knew that I lacked a proper technique involved in that project. It so happened that Gundry and as soon as I knew about this programme, I also had a particular interest in the harp. He could asked a harpist friend, John Marson, for advice. He not play at that stage (he learned a little later), but said, you should think of spending a summer holiday had inherited an old Erard harp from his mother, working with Maria Korchinska. I approached her, which stood unstrung in his home. The instrument she accepted, and that was the start of five years of fascinated Brian, who eventually he asked to borrow regular lessons. and to get renovated. In his memoir The Last Boy of the Family (1998) Inglis Gundry devotes a chapter to How it worked was that she would agree to hear Brian Davis and recalls: ‘I had never thought of Brian anybody, really anybody, and then she would tell as a possible harpist, but one day he came to me and them exactly what she thought of their playing— asked if he might borrow our family harp, bearing the which meant that most of these ‘bodies’ didn’t return! expense of stringing it up ready for performance. We I had however been warned: I told one or two harpist were only too glad to have it used, though we felt a friends that I was to have lessons with Maria, and the certain qualm at seeing it out of our sight wondering response was ‘Oh dear, I know what she’ll say: if you whether it would ever be in our possession again. want to play properly, you’ll have to start again!’ That was exactly what she did say, and I was quite prepared to comply—after all, it was the greatest honour to be a pupil of someone of her standing. So we started from scratch, with absolutely basic things. It was very hard, in the first three or four months, to forget a technique that had become ingrained and substitute another. After the first few of these ferocious sessions I thought she would say something like: “Look, Mr Davis, you’re really wasting your time, why not take up gardening instead!?” Yet she never did, she would always say: ‘and ven you are coming again?’ So then it dawned on me that her efforts were having an effect, and that teaching me was The Inglis worthwhile. Gundry harp which I started in September 1972, and it wasn’t till around Brian Davis Christmas that I dared to mention the Wigmore Hall used for programme. She looked very serious and said: ‘it is a ten years challenge, but one should always accept a challenge—bring the music next veek!’ So we worked at this thing hammer and tongs for 3 or 4 months-- it was a good piece and she liked it, and it was an interesting process.

39 Brian Davis c.1975 Letter of 10 May 1973 ‘I must congratulate you for During the course of the preparation she said: please last night’s performance—really it was very good and bring the singer and the composer here [to her house excellently controlled—I am sorry I was not ac- in Greville Road in north-west London]—she wanted quainted enough with the texts of others works— to see how it was going to work out.’ without it one cannot judge the music. I hope you were pleased and the composer too...MK’ This meeting happened, and there is a nice description of the occasion in William Lewarne Harris’s memoir. He wrote: Brian continues:

‘… Margaret [Lindsay], sang, and Brian Davis, a fine ‘I was playing a lot of contemporary music then, and harpist whom I had known for some time, played. I I was especially grateful to Maria for the interest she seem to have been responsible for reshaping Brian’s always showed in any new pieces that I brought. I career at this stage! Firstly, the thought of had a few composer friends who were writing for the performing a new work at the Wigmore Hall seems to harp at that time: sometimes works for soprano and have scared him into going to Maria Korchinska, the harp, sometimes harp solo, and she was always great Russian harpist, for lessons. Secondly, the duo interested, and very helpful in working up a precise with Margaret Lindsay continued for some years, with rendition of them. She had curiosity, about many recitals together and other new works added to everything really, and to find somebody after such a mine. We started off by taking the new work to long career as hers suggesting not just the usual Norfolk, where Brian lives, and trying it out at a repertoire but engaging enthusiastically with pieces couple of concerts before unleashing it on London. that had only just been written, that was impressive.’ One of these was at Sandringham church, but not when the royal family was in residence, so I have to On the question of combining his teaching and his omit the ‘has performed in front of royalty’ bit in my music, Brian says: ‘Yes I combined all this harp publicity! tuition with my teaching—a marvellous job at Swaffham grammar, a small and happy school with Korchinska was an amazing lady: she had played the an excellent head. I was able to do the job efficiently harp at Lenin’s funeral and also, later, at the funeral and leave time for music, and I was already playing of the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII), so she has her professionally during those five years of study with musical niche in history. When I went to the Maria’. rehearsal at her house and rang the doorbell, I could hear Brian playing exercises for a long time before On the subject of MK’s tough teaching style, Brian the door was opened by a small, elderly woman with has this to say: a poker face who informed me, “Meester Davis ees having his torture”. Apparently she had given him a ‘Maria was a dedicated teacher. “I enjoy teaching; it rigorous schooling, taking him back to the most basic is much more creative than playing” she was wont to exercises. Margaret and I were offered sherry, but say. Her teaching method was not the gentle none for Mr. Davis—not until after he had played.’ sympathetic encouragement of conventional English [46] teaching; it was a ferocious discipline born of her own rigorous Russian training and absolutely Brian recalls: ‘Maria decided that she would come to uncompromising character. the Wigmore Hall concert. She said: “I shall come and hear you!” and I thought “oh dear”. Then she For many it was overpowering. ‘No, no, that is no remembered a clash and said “No, I won’t be able to good at all!’… ‘No, that is all wrong’…’That makes no hear you after all—I will be at a harp weekend in sense at all!’..or even ‘What is zis? How can you Amsterdam”, and I thought “That’s a bit of a relief!” make such a terrible noise?’” But then there was a second afterthought: “No”, she said, “I am coming back early to hear you!” And she In the face of such forthright comment some felt did! Fortunately it went well, and afterwards she hopelessly affronted or deflated. Indeed her pupils wrote me a marvellous letter to congratulate me. I could afford to have no vanity or complacency (‘if you also wrote, immediately after the concert, to thank are satisfied, you are finished!’)—just an acceptance her because I couldn’t possibly have done it without of extremely accurate criticism and a real her help, and the two letters crossed. I was very determination to overcome the weaknesses exposed. touched by this support.’ That being in evidence, what devotion and warmth of

40 heart she showed, and what gratifying progress And while conscious of her talent she never took resulted—I say that as one whose playing was herself too seriously. ‘I am very glad,’ she says in her transformed by her teaching. How unintelligent and final communication to Brian in December 1978, ‘that clumsy she could make one feel—yet how dissatisfied you are so very busy and everybody talks about your with being unintelligent and clumsy. playing. The torture of Maria Korchinska certainly gave a very excellent result.’ I did not get upset by her approach. I was a teacher too, and I knew what she was trying to do, I ‘The success of her protégés down the years’, Brian respected it and I was very interested to learn from concludes, ‘testifies to the accuracy of her that uncompromising technique. It was not what judgement—a judgement deferred to throughout the English teachers were being advised to do at the international harp world, as witness the repeated time—received authority would not have allowed invitation for her to sit on the panel of the Israeli such an approach in any school then, still less now. competition. But I wasn’t in sympathy with the received approach anyway. However, one visited her not just for tuition, but as a remarkable and delightful personality, whose tales of At times, though, startled by her own vehemence, her astonishing experiences through an exceptionally she would afterwards apologise disarmingly: ’I am rigorous childhood, through a Moscow Conservatoire sorry I was so nasty to you. Some do not training at the time of Glazunov and Ippolitov- understand; I am not being nasty to them because I Ivanov, through the start of a brilliant professional hate them—I just so want the music to be right; life, bearing responsibility for her whole family now listen to what you are doing…’ through the Revolution, and through her distinguished career spanning fifty years in this ‘One got used to the style of the lesson’, Brian says, country, would keep one fascinated for hours. “Music and ‘often we laughed about it and she would say: is interesting, yes”, she would say, “but people are “when are you coming for your next torture?”’ what interests me most”. And, “I have never been afraid of people—of events, yes, but not people.” What comes through in her communications to Brian The prospect of death did not dismay her. “I am Davis (35 letters, the first dated 30 June 1972, the ready to go. I have lived through two world wars and last 4 December 1978) is a toughness borne of a revolution, and played the harp every day for 70 intense commitment to her teaching, yet also, as he years—don’t you think that is enough? Besides, it says above, devotion and warmth. She advises, might be very interesting afterwards!” congratulates, encourages, harshly criticises yet also on occasion apologises for her harshness, and thanks Her most expressive use of words that, to the end, Brian for his visits, for helping with repairs around tended to follow Russian rather than English the house, and for the many gifts of fruit and constructions, enhanced her fantastic humour which vegetables which he would regularly deliver from his was a perpetual delight to us all. Won’t every pupil Norfolk garden. Excerpts from a few of these remember with delight that moment after each communications are given below. gruelling session when she would say, “You’ve had enough? Now let’s have a drink—we both deserve The upshot must be that her approach worked it.”’ because she knew what she wanted, and she cared, and not only about the music but about the person.

Maria Korchinska to Brian Davis

6 January 1974 : I write to say, that I am sorry having pressed you too much over the Carols—please forgive me and don’t let me discourage you—but the preparation of works that are too difficult... don’t help to build up reasonable technical demands—15 months is not long enough, one has to concentrate on making one’s fingers independent for quite a few years—usually, so please don’t be discouraged and forgive me my demands. Hope the Carols go well on Sunday and I will expect your call to say how it was.

29 April 1975 : Just to say how glad I am that you conquered so well Handel—congratulations

23 June 1975: Thank you for your telephoning—and congratulations on your [concert]—Mr Gundry was obviously very pleased with your performance and I am glad that you are so busy in playing new works— you do them so very well…

4 October 1975: I cannot thank you enough for your very generous help... I am very grateful and hope that I might be useful to you with the harp. The Falla is difficult, but the Symphony is devilish—please relax when you study it and if not possible for two hands, take the right hand with 2 hands loud –and generally, please listen more when you play—I will find more songs for you with the singer—when you come here next time…

12 October 1976: I have come home on Sunday from Holland, Israel and Scotland—Holland Harpweek, Israel Harp Festival, Scotland Haddo House, playing very dull works and playing them badly!....also... all my travel with the harp queuing up for hours, has made me quite ill and gaga—so now I do nothing and hope to get in some reasonable shape soon.’

41 7 July 1977: ‘Delighted to know the [Mozart]concerto went so well—it is an achievement and a very good write up—congratulations. Now, I think, you have a part of my memoirs--I cannot find them here—so if you bring them when you come for a torture I shall be grateful…’

3 July 1978: ‘It was a very nice and unexpected visit of you calling here—Thank you very much and the delicious bottle of wine too! I drank half already, but you must not give me presents all the time particularly now when you even don’t play for me...I have not been too well lately, lost my balance and my memory—remember very well the past and don’t remember what I have done yesterday...Please come to play for me without any presents or money…

9 September 1978: ‘Cannot thank you enough for calling today to see me! It was a great pleasure for me to see you and I think in a very good form—and thank you for the extravagant gifts—I won’t get any vegetables for weeks! …Please do come again with your harp and your singer—I would love to hear you both here. Old age is a nuisance and a very boring time—and as I said all my pupils got the top jobs and left me! I have a lot of time to spare!—so far, but being 83...it might not be too long to be off for good—so please come soon—Karen, one of my best students, is the head harpist for all Scotland and is very happy. I hope you will do what you like if you change your job—I shall be sorry if you leave teaching—education is so very [important] for young people…’

24 September 1978 ‘Thank you very much to call yesterday with [your singer] Margaret ...I think you are in very good form—a little more thumb at the very top perhaps. Your partner has no charm in her voice and is rather aggressive in her interpretations—you deserve a better partner—please forgive me my criticism but I think you should have a better singer.

23 October 1978: ‘I write to apologise for me being so beastly to you yesterday—it is all my fault, I should never have told you to play [the whole of the] Ravel…[but] you can do it two pages [at a time]…Hope to see you again and I am sorry for my outburst!’

4 December 1978 ‘I said no gifts of any sort and I thought that you agreed... but when I tried to tidy the room for the evening, I found endless gifts for which I thank you very much, but it is not fair…I am very glad that you are so very busy and everybody talks about your playing. The torture of Maria Korchinska certainly gave a very excellent result

42 NOTES [15] Ibid

[1] Nick Lampert, ‘Flute-playing: a Family [16] Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten (Faber Inheritance’, Flute, June 2010 1992), p.71

[2] The reference is to The Barretts of Wimpole [17] Confirmed by Maria Korchinska’s daughter Street (1930) by Rudolph Besier (1878-1942), a Nathalie Brooke, and by Karen Vaughan, with whom historical drama about the love of Elizabeth Barrett Korchinska spoke about this episode. and Robert Browning. Edward Moulton-Barrett, a widower, rules his family despotically, determined to [18] The English Opera Group was a small company preserve his children from the evil influences of the of British musicians formed in 1947 by Benjamin world, including marriage. His eldest daughter, Britten (together with John Piper and Eric Crozier) to Elizabeth, an invalid who is confined to her room and present his and other, mainly British, operatic works. to whom Edward shows uncommon affection, must act as a mother to her brothers and sisters. When [19] Telephone interview with William Bennett 4 June Browning arrives on the scene, having made 2014 Elizabeth’s acquaintance through a series of letters, he fills the house with an energy and love of life that [20] Rhuna Martin in an email communication 30 infuse Elizabeth with new strength. Their friendship June 2014. The Northern Sinfonia was a soon ripens into love; they marry secretly, and British chamber orchestra, based at first in Newcastle Elizabeth escapes forever from her plush Victorian on Tyne. Rhuna died in August 2014, aged 82 (see prison. (McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama obituary by Steven Isserlis, Guardian 1 Sep 2014). (1984) Vol 1 p.344) [21] R. Leppard, An Anthology of Critical and Karen Vaughan drew attention also to the parallels Personal Writings (1993), p.85 between MK’s upbringing and that of Clara Schumann (Wieck) (1819-1896). From an early age, Clara's [22] Telephone interview with Cy Payne, 17 February career and life was planned down to the smallest 2015. Cy Payne has had a prolific career as arranger, detail by her father Friedrich Wieck. She daily composer and music director in many aspects of the received a one-hour lesson (in piano, violin, singing, music industry including television, radio, films and theory, harmony, composition, and counterpoint), recordings. He has worked on TV variety shows and and two hours of practice, using the teaching spectaculars (including Jack Good’s "Oh Boy", Wayne methods he had developed on his own. She met Sleep’s "The Hot Shoe Show", and for over 25 Robert Schumann in 1928, when she was eight and years "Come Dancing"), written film scores, arranged Schumann 9 years older. They were married in 1840, for and recorded with noted singers (including Cliff despite strong objections by Clara’s father. Richard, Elton John, Charles Aznavour and Shirley Bassey), and has also recorded with his own [3] This circumstance did not however prevent Erdeli orchestra. He has worked for the major military from continuing her career as performer elsewhere, bands, most of which have Cy Payne arrangements in and as teacher, arranger and composer. their libraries. He was Musical Director for Mitchell- Monkhouse Associates (1974-1987), a big conference [4] Studio Portrait, BBC Broadcast 14 May 1965 and trade show company, writing, producing and conducting the music for their shows. Later he scored [5] The identity of the piece is not clear, but not several shows at the London Palladium for ATA Bruch (the slow movement of his violin concerto is Productions, and scored and conducted a cast of 800 not scored for violin, harp and organ). at the Royal Albert Hall for the same company. He now lives in East Anglia, where for 18 years he has [6] A history of Persimfans can be found in S.P. directed the Downham Market Swing Orchestra which Ponyatovsky, Persimfans. Moscow 2003 (in Russian) he established and which contributes to local charities. For a fuller list see [7] Count Constantine Benckendorff, Half a Life http://www.musicorchestrations.com/Musical- (London 1954) Orchestrations/cy-payne.html [23] Studio Portrait, BBC Broadcast 14 May 1965 [8] In David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, The People's Almanac series 1975 – 1981, cited in Trivia- [24] Jet den Hertog, A Portrait of Phia Berghout Library.com (Amsterdam 2008), p.40 [9] Ibid. [25] ‘The first Harp Weeks in the Netherlands’, UKHA Newsletter no.1, January 1965 [10] S.P. Ponyatovsky, Persimfans. Moscow 2003 (in Russian) [26] Karen Vaughan ‘Vera Dulova (1910-2000). A Personal Souvenir and an Appreciation’ [11] Count Constantine Benckendorff, Half a Life (London 1954) [27] Ibid [12] Studio Portrait, BBC Broadcast 14 May 1965 [28] Pearl Chertok, ‘Holland Harp Week—the First Ten Years’ American Harp Journal Spring 1970 [13] Marie Goossens [29] Interview with Karen Vaughan 26 June 2014 [14] Studio Portrait, BBC Broadcast 14 May 1965

43 [30] Ibid [39] There is a fuller account of this meeting in Hilary Wilson, ‘With a Harp to Moscow’, UKHA Newsletter [31] Phia Berghout, ‘In Memory of Maria Korchinska’, No. 2 June 1965. American Harp Journal Summer 1980, Vol 7, no.3 [40] Interview with Sian Morgan Thomas 14 July [32] le Blog des Harpes Camac: 2014, with inclusion of reminiscence published in www.harpblog.info/harpblog/2012/06/in-two-days- UKHA magazine no.51 June 1979 jakez-thomas-enric-and-i-are-all-heading-to-st- petersburg-for-the-ksenia-erderly-international- [41] Ibid. competition-i-a.html [41] Interview with Karen Vaughan 26 June 2014 [33] Ibid [42] ‘Lessons with Maria Korchinska’ UK Harp [34] Isobel Frayling Cork, biographical piece written Association magazine, 16 January 1992. on behalf of the Maria Korchinska Memorial Fund, set up in 1980 [43] Karen Vaughan was elected to the World Harp Congress Board of Directors in 2003 and participated [35] Interview with Karen Vaughan 26 June 2014 in congresses in Dublin (2005) and Amsterdam (2008). Among other roles, she gave a masterclass [36] Interview with Hannah Francis 9 June 2014 on Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols in Vancouver in July 2011, and chaired a panel on orchestral playing [37] Interview with Hilary Wilson in Sydney 2014. In 2007 she served on the jury for the Seventh USA International Harp Competition in [38] Sasha (Alexander) Benckendorff did in fact play Bloomington and in 2013 for the first European Lyon the guitar, and to quite a good standard. His remark & Healy Awards, in Cardiff. She has also given to Hilary Wilson therefore suggests that he was masterclasses in Ireland, Birmingham, London, speaking of his mother strongly dissuading him from Beijing and Tokyo and is in demand as an examiner taking up the guitar professionally. This is plausible, throughout the UK. For many years she was Vice since she was very aware of how tough it was to President of the United Kingdom Harp Association. make a living in the musical world. I remember a particular conversation when I was perhaps twelve or thirteen, when Maria and Cony were both present. I [44] Interview with Brian Davis 6 September 2014 had taken up the flute, greatly encouraged by Cony, and Cony, then well into his seventies (he died in [45] Inglis Gundry, The Last Boy of the Family 1959), was fantasising that I might pursue it (1998) professionally and what a fine occupation that would be. Nonsense, she said, music is a terrible profession, [46] William Lewarne Harris, Knocking on a Bolted don’t think of it! This remark might seem strange Door—An Autobiographical Symphony (2014), p.96. coming from such a committed performer, yet is was strongly felt and betrayed, I am sure, how much struggle lay behind her illustrious career.

44 8

10

12 7 9 11

13

3 2 1 5 14

4

6

A gathering of (mostly) harpists hosted by Nathalie Brooke, Maria Korchinska’s daughter, at her flat in London in 2006. The guests included Natalya Shameyeva, Vera Dulova’s pupil, who had given a recital at the Royal Academy of Music.

(1) Nathalie Brooke (2) Helen Benckendorff, Nathalie’s sister-in-law (her brother Alexander’s widow) (3) Brian Davis (4) Bryn Lewis (5) David Watkins (6) Skaila Kanga (7) Natalya Shameyeva (8) Karen Vaughan (9) Isobel Frayling-Cork (10) Imogen Barford (11) Hilary Wilson (12) Jim Munson (13) Charlotte Seale (14) Daphne Boden

45