Chopin Waltz in A flat Op 34 No 1 Lympany Rec 1959 Video

This illustrious pianist was born Mary Johnstone in Cornwall, England. August 18, 1916. She was introduced to the piano by her mother at an early age. Mary loved to practice and startled everyone by playing the Liszt E Major Polonaise at the age of eleven. For this performance she was awarded a prize. . . The following year, ten days before her 13th birthday, Mary made her concerto debut in Harrogate (UK) playing the Mendelssohn G minor concerto, a work that remained in her repertoire throughout her career. The orchestra was conducted by Basil Cameron and it was he who suggested that Marys name was, perhaps, not quite the attention grabber needed for an up and coming concert pianist. With her mothers permission, she changed her first name to Moura, a Russian diminutive of Mary, and her last to Limpenny (she changed the spelling to Lympany) her mothers maiden name. Thus, Moura Lympany was born. Cameron was pleased.

At the age of fifteen, Moura began her studies with Mathilde Verne, a pupil of Clara Schumann, and later with Tobias Matthay, the teacher of Myra Hess, Clifford Curson, Eileen Joyce and others.

Lympany gave an interview which was published in the Etude magazine concerning her studies with Verne in May of 1949.

"SINCE I am in no sense a pedagog, I can speak of. pianistic

progress only in terms of my own ex-perience. I always loved to

play, and longed to play as well as possible (who does not?), but it

re-mained for two fine teachers to show me how to work.

My technical studies were greatly advanced by the thoughtful

discipline of Mathilde Verne. My techni-cal problems were,

perhaps, unusual! I was bom with naturally fluent hands; I have

never had to struggle for speed, agility, or any of the other purely

mechani-cal difficulties that are suggested by the word "tech-nique."

On the contrary, I could read a page of the most difficult music

(technically speaking), and play it straight off. At fifteen, I was

rather pleased with this.' Miss Verne taught me better.

It was she who pointed out to me that a too-easy technique was a

liability rather than an asset, because it was quite uncontrolled.

Nothing has value, she would say, that comes by itself—you have to

know what you are doing, how to do it, how to plan to do it, how to

make natural facilities serve you instead of governing you. Her first

words to me were. "Now, you are going to learn how to practice!"

Her two secrets of good practice were regularity (regardless of how

you feel, what you might like to do, or what your mood is), and

mental control (never to practice a note that was not directed and

guided by alert musi-cal thought). Miss Veme made me practice four

hours a day, at one-hour periods, so that the guiding brain would

never be fatigued. I find such a system very stimulating, and still

adhere to it. Every day of my life, I practice from ten to eleven, from

twelve to one, from three-thirty to four-thirty, and, after tea, from

five to six. For the last hour, my husband has come home from his

business and, since he is a fine amateur pianist, we devote the time

to playing concertos together."

In 1938, Lympany made her Wigmore Hall debut. It was a huge success, but it was her winning of the second prize at the Queen Elisabeth (Belgium) competition during that year that launched her international career. It was Matthay who suggested that she enter the competition. A young Emil Gilels, Jakob Flier and Arturo Michelangeli were among the contestants. It was expected that either Gilels or Flier would win first prize. Gilels did take first but Lympany took second ahead of Flier. Michelangeli was seventh.

A long and distinguished career followed this event. Unfortunately, I only heard Lympany on two occasions. The last time I heard her play, she ended the recital with the Liszt Polonaise that had earned her a prize as a child. I was not aware at the time of the compositions significance in her life as a pianist. Had I known, it would have made an unforgettable recital even more memorable.

Moura Lympany died in Minton France, March 28, 2005.